FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is unhappy with the way his case is being dealt with, leaving him in prison for 25 years. This week, SBF filed a motion at the Southern District of New York seeking a new trial. SBF, founder the now defunct and bankrupt FTX exchange, believes that FTX-related proceedings and his conviction was influenced by the anti-crypto stance that the U.S. was under during the reign of former President Joe Biden wherein the Department of Justice (DoJ) and case attorneys played him to liquidate FTX and its sister company, Alameda Research.
SBF’s verified X account handled by a proxy posted updates on this new court filing on Tuesday.
“But FTX was never bankrupt. I never filed for it. The lawyers took over the company and four hours later they filed a bogus bankruptcy so they could pilfer it for money,” SBF’s X handle posted. He has reiterated that FTX U.S. was not affected by the customer fund deficits — but the attorneys handling the case, as per SBF, insisted that FTX U.S. was what could have fetched them the legal fees.
In the new motion SBF has filed, he said that the jury was not presented with critical facts including sworn declarations that claimed that FTX was, indeed, solvent during the November 2022 period of exchange collapse.
The jailed crypto mogul has claimed that FTX customers were fully repayable.
Images of the new motion have surfaced on social media. It shows that SBF has alleged witness intimidation in conspiring to liquidate FTX and keep him out of the process. SBF has accused prosecutors of pressuring former FTX executive Ryan Salame’s pregnant fiancee to extract a guilty plea.
The court is yet to approve or reject SBF’s appeal. More clarity on the situation is likely in the coming days.
The FTX exchange was touted among the largest in the world by 2022. It had hit a valuation of $32 billion at peak before an alleged mismanagement of user funds caused the exchange to collapse in November that year. It is believed that SBF had misused user funds to back risky decisions at its Alameda Research hedge fund company. FTX’s downfall had wiped off billions from the crypto market, leaving users high and dry. The compensation process is still ongoing.
Now that President Donald Trump is taking efforts to establish the U.S. as a crypto hub, SBF has been hoping for a presidential pardon. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) was recently granted the presidential pardon from the White House over the bank law breach case.
During a recent interview, President Trump said that FTX’s fallen CEO SBF was not on his list of potential pardon receivers.