Last time I wrote about Sam Bankman Fried’s ongoing efforts to overturn fraud and conspiracy chargesI wrote, “Anyone who wants to keep trying, or pay lawyers to keep trying for them, can do more legal work chasing a favorable decision all the way to the Supreme Court if they want.”
And he does. Not just by paying lawyers to do it for him. The lawyer wrote his final documents himself with the help of his parents. According to Bloombergand they were rejected by Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw the trial that led to his conviction. Bloomberg quotes the judge as saying that SBF’s self-authored motion “appears to be part of a plan to salvage Bankman-Fried’s reputation, which he hatched and even had written after FTX filed for bankruptcy but before the indictment.”
It seems that the judge is talking about that “plan”. It was a piece of evidence from 2022 that was released by the prosecution in 2024. His business was in crisis when he wrote it, but he had not yet been charged, Bankman-Fried created a document titled “these are all random, probably unchecked bad ideas; CONFIDENTIAL.” They include appearing on Tucker Carlson’s TV show to come out as anti-Oyan and Republican.
That plan included an idea that was part of his last presentation: that FTX’s Chapter 11 filing wiped out some of the hidden liquidity that could have made its victims whole. a presentation last monthThe prosecution called the allegation “factually incorrect, legally irrelevant and deeply misleading.”
To refresh your memory, SBF was convicted of seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy. The prosecution’s allegations were that billions of dollars were transferred from the relative safety of FTX clients’ accounts to the more volatile Alameda Research, a hedge fund linked to FTX. When crypto winter hit Alameda research, the value of many of these FTX investors’ cryptocurrencies was wiped out—unless they had a hidden source of money.
In its latest filing, Bankman-Fried claimed there were two newly discovered witnesses whose testimony would support the secret liquidity story: former FTX executives Ryan Salame (who was also convicted) and Daniel Chapski.
“The proposed witnesses were fully known to the defense prior to trial and are therefore not ‘newly discovered,'” the prosecution wrote last month.
Apparently, the SBF had said something unthinkable before Kaplan’s verdict. Bloomberg says the decision “came even after Bankman-Fried asked to withdraw her request, arguing that the judge would not be fair in her ruling.” But Kaplan rejected this retreat attempt as well.
