FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has formally appealed his fraud conviction, requesting a new trial and accusing the judge overseeing his case of being unfairly biased against him, according to a report from the New York Times.
Last November, a New York jury convicted Bankman-Fried of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to the collapse of his crypto exchange in November 2022. In March, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison for his crimes.
In the 102-page appeal filed Friday afternoon, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argued that Judge Kaplan was unfair to the FTX founder throughout the trial, making “biting comments undermining the defense” and “deriding” his testimony in front of the jury.
“Sam Bankman-Fried was never presumed innocent,” his lawyer, Alexandra Shapiro wrote in the filing. “He was presumed guilty by the judge who presided over his trial.”