Sam Bankman-Fried Files Appeal For Fraud Conviction (cointelegraph.com) 54
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried's legal team has filed an appeal challenging his conviction on seven felony counts and his 25-year prison sentence. They argue that he was not presumed innocent, that the jury received incomplete information about FTX user funds, and that the prosecution's narrative was biased. CoinTelegraph reports: In a Sept. 13 filing in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, SBF's lawyers filed a 102-page brief claiming that the former FTX CEO was "never presumed innocent," subject to scrutiny that allegedly affected prosecutors, the presiding judge, and treatment by the media. Bankman-Fried's legal team announced in April -- a few weeks after a federal judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison -- that they intended to appeal. According to the appeal, SBF's lawyers alleged the jury was "only allowed to see half the picture" with FTX user funds, claiming prosecutors had "presented a false narrative" that the money was permanently lost and Bankman-Fried intentionally caused that loss. They also claimed that counsel for the FTX debtors worked with the US government in a way that was above and beyond "cooperation," providing information allegedly as an "arm of the prosecution."
"From day one, the prevailing narrative -- initially spun by the lawyers who took over FTX, quickly adopted by their contacts at the US Attorney's Office -- was that Bankman-Fried had stolen billions of dollars of customer funds, driven FTX to insolvency, and caused billions in losses," said the appeal. "Now, nearly two years later, a very different picture is emerging -- one confirming FTX was never insolvent, and in fact had assets worth billions to repay its customers. But the jury at Bankman-Fried's trial never got to see that picture." The legal team requested the appellate court grant SBF a new trial with a different judge. It's unclear whether the Second Circuit could rule to affirm Bankman-Fried's conviction in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York or reverse the decision and set the groundwork for a new trial.
"From day one, the prevailing narrative -- initially spun by the lawyers who took over FTX, quickly adopted by their contacts at the US Attorney's Office -- was that Bankman-Fried had stolen billions of dollars of customer funds, driven FTX to insolvency, and caused billions in losses," said the appeal. "Now, nearly two years later, a very different picture is emerging -- one confirming FTX was never insolvent, and in fact had assets worth billions to repay its customers. But the jury at Bankman-Fried's trial never got to see that picture." The legal team requested the appellate court grant SBF a new trial with a different judge. It's unclear whether the Second Circuit could rule to affirm Bankman-Fried's conviction in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York or reverse the decision and set the groundwork for a new trial.
Sam no longer... (Score:1)
...a Bank man, is fried.
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Why do censor trolls have mod points? Or are they punishing you for feeding the troll?
Actually one of the interesting parts of Going Infinite by Michael Lewis was the stuff about SBF donating money to Mitch McConnell, with the deliberate intention of supporting some less Trumpy candidates. But I mostly get the impression that the current crop of Slashdot participants does not read many books. (Sure feel tempted to defend the continued existence of books and libraries...)
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No, he didn't. Someone he worked with did like 10% Republican and 90% Democrats and it is documented that was just to keep up appearances that they weren't biased.
Re: All he did was ensure Dems were in office in 2 (Score:2)
From what I heard, the extradition process was rushed... so it ended up various other charges could not be brought for other crimes he committed. This wad either incompetence.... or a cover up for others.
Re: All he did was ensure Dems were in office in 2 (Score:1)
Did you misspell profits, since all his creditors came out ahead?
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He got lucky.
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I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't a prosecutor supposed to be biased?
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Yes, the prosecutor is supposed to be biased, you don't want a prosecutor prosecuting people he/she thinks are innocent.
However, the prosecutor is still required to turn over ALL evidence to the defense counsel, even that which might cast doubt on the defendant's guilt. If the prosecutor screws up that is usually where it happens. They withhold something that would weaken their case or something they think is irrelevant but actually would be useful to the defense.
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It relates to Prosecutorial Discretion [wikipedia.org]. It is the prosecutor that charges someone with a crime, and they generally have wide latitude. However they do have certain requirements to make a charge, such as they have to have some sort of evidence to support the charge. Usually prosecutorial bias comes in when the evidence is flimsy, but they're going to charge someone becaus
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Thank you for that explanation.
Seems like a hail Mary post conviction, but it also makes sense as to all of the things being claimed. Essentially trying to argue a chain of legal bias from start to finish.
nice try though (Score:4, Insightful)
"...FTX was never insolvent, and in fact had assets worth billions to repay its customers."
Of course, CRIME part wasn't about it being out of money.
The crime part was having a private backdoor into invested funds to use as your own slush / political donation fund.
The fact that he hadn't actually bankrupted the fund is fairly immaterial.
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If FTX wasn't as insolvent as originally thought and it actually had capital to cover it's debts to a greater extent than was portrayed, then the fraud charges come into question, which could lessen his sentence. At least that appears to be the strategy for his lawyers.
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Re: nice try though (Score:1)
What if the only reason there was a bank run was because a competitor spread rumors?
Re: nice try though (Score:1)
What if I start a rumor on SVB and the Fed bails the out? Why did SBF go to jail?
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Frankly, if I was charged with or convicted of a crime, I'd want my lawyers trying their hardest to get the best deal for me too. You can't blame them for making the argument; they're not making a moral argument. They're trying to reduce his sentence using every possible method they can think of.
Re: nice try though (Score:1)
If the Fed had bailed out Lehman's would 2008 have looked like the SVB episode, i.e. not recession-causing?
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This is not news (Score:5, Informative)
If he didn't appeal that would be news. Heck, he might be able to sue his lawyers or make the appeal about incompetent legal representation.
Move on, there's nothing to see here.
What the hell else is he gonna do? (Score:4, Informative)
He's in the pokey for 25 years, and there's no federal parole so he's going to eat the full meal. What the hell else would you expect other than to see if he can get those years back by launching appeals to any court that will listen to the petition?
This is what long-term incarcerated people do.
There is something weird about his conviction... (Score:4, Interesting)
The FTX case was entirely about embezzlement, non-violent theft. Sam Bankman-Fried ripped off his investors. He was sentenced to 25 years.
The Binance case was an entirely different beast. Their founder wasn't stealing money, he was laundering it for violent, transnational criminal organizations. They found evidence that Binance deliberately helped members of drug cartels, North Korean hackers and sanctioned Russian mobsters circumvent local laws to access their platform. Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, made himself a part of global supply chains for violence and extortion. And this isn't my opinion, this is the DOJ's opinion (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/binance-and-ceo-plead-guilty-federal-charges-4b-resolution). CZ was offered a plea deal and received a 4 month sentence.
The discrepancy between those two sentences makes SBF's sentence see cruel and unusual. It's my personal opinion that SBF's prosecution is everything wrong with our justice system. The media has been reporting that FTX's customers will get all their money back so what did SBF really do that was so bad to warrant a 25 year sentence? He made Sequoia and all the other brain-dead tech VC's look real stupid. They all poured money into a fake business with no product. Sequoia used to bring us companies like Apple and Oracle but their recent history includes FTX and Bitclout, two companies that ended in federal indictments. But these companies didn't "break bad", they never had a product. They were obviously committing fraud at the time that Sequoia invested in them.
As far as I can tell SBF's prosecution was done for the benefit of Sequoia Capital. They need the public to believe that SBF is some kind of outlying criminal mastermind so they can maintain plausible deniability of the underlying criminality of their investments in crypto.
Re:There is something weird about his conviction.. (Score:4, Insightful)
SBF played the “Trump card”: admit nothing, give nothing, fight tooth and nail every step of the way, and generally be as unhelpful and uncooporative as possible. And the justice dept was like “welp, we’ll just return the favor. Make life hard for us? We’ll hit you with everything we got”.
That’s an all-or-nothing strategy. If you get off, it’s completely scott free. If you lose, you take the punch straight in the teeth. In a way, that’s totally in character for cryptobros. Extreme risk taking.
That’s why he’s in the slammer for a full 25 years. And he’s unlikely to get out early. When you decide to play the full “i does whats I wants and I gets my day in courts” strategy, you’d better be sure you’re gonna win, cause if you lose your proverbial head gets put on a pike over the moat as an example to others.
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I’m gonna guess that the Binance guy played ball. He gave up everything the justice department and the FBI and CIA wanted. Answered all their questions. Spilled the beans on all the hidden accounts, shady deals, secret passwords and criminal buddies. And then agreed to admit guilt in public and take his lumps. In exchange for a much lighter sentence.
SBF played the “Trump card”: admit nothing, give nothing, fight tooth and nail every step of the way, and generally be as unhelpful and uncooporative as possible. And the justice dept was like “welp, we’ll just return the favor. Make life hard for us? We’ll hit you with everything we got”.
That’s an all-or-nothing strategy. If you get off, it’s completely scott free. If you lose, you take the punch straight in the teeth. In a way, that’s totally in character for cryptobros. Extreme risk taking.
That’s why he’s in the slammer for a full 25 years. And he’s unlikely to get out early. When you decide to play the full “i does whats I wants and I gets my day in courts” strategy, you’d better be sure you’re gonna win, cause if you lose your proverbial head gets put on a pike over the moat as an example to others.
I agree, and I can see the reasoning, but I also think it's kinda messed up. The length of SBF's imprisonment changed by decades, not because of anything to do with his conduct, but because he took a dumb approach to the trial.
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Which is a good thing, being cooperative should be looked upon favourably and vice versa. It sends a clear signal to those that want to try the "fuck you, I can do whatever I want line", it costs the courts and tax payers more so it should cost him a lot more.
Partially. But you know who else goes to trial? People who believe they're innocent, or who think they haven't done anything wrong.
In SBF's case that belief was a bit delusional but there's plenty of other cases where there's legit questions if the prosecutor is overreaching, and the accused, who perhaps rightly decides they don't deserve to be prosecuted, goes to trial and ends up with a severe punishment.
I'd say maybe the solution is to ding the prosecutors more harshly for losing a decision, so they don'
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Re: There is something weird about his conviction. (Score:2)
Absolutely nothing weird about this. CZ likely was not as universally stupid and full of arrogant hubris as Bank-Fraud. CZ very likely had tons of infos and material to bargain a good deal with, while Sam Fraud only had his arrogant and loud mouth going for him and he directly defrauded and harmed the public.
Re: There is something weird about his conviction (Score:1)
Who was actually harmed?
argument seems irrelevant (Score:2)
false (Score:2, Informative)
"and in fact had assets worth billions to repay its customers"
this is simply lawyer weasel words, people that lost all their bitcoin are not getting their bitcoin, they are getting the low value bitcoin was at when it went bust, so they are losing 2/3rds of their investment.
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How did they "lose" the Bitcoin? Just give the Bitcoin back in Bitcoin and you'll have more money today than you did before the silent depression started. The problem in these cases is that the prosecutor expressed the value of Bitcoin in dollar at a time the market for dollars had collapsed internationally (because the dollar has no true value such as gold backing it). Remember we have had 40%+ inflation over the last 3.5 years.
Re: false (Score:1)
Didn't they sell the bitcoin imediately upon jailing him?
Re: false (Score:1)
If SBF were in charge, would they have their bitcoin now instead of a lower value due to the new CEO selling it too quickly?
Re: false (Score:1)
What if you are spinning a tall tale?
Why hasnt he been suicided yet? (Score:2)
If they can suicide Epstein and McAffee, how is it that this duechebag is still breathing?
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Maybe he didn't diddle little kids. That's how they end up suicided. And the guards don't know why or how...