FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has asked an appellate court to review his case two weeks after a US district judge sentenced him to spend more than two decades behind bars.
In a new court document filed on April 11th, Bankman-Fried’s lawyer, Alexandra Shapiro, notified the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that the former chief executive is appealing his conviction and sentence to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Authorities accused Bankman-Fried of facilitating a scheme that siphoned over $8 billion in FTX customer funds to his trading firm, Alameda Research, representing what prosecutors called one of the largest financial frauds in history.
In November, a jury found Bankman-Fried guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against FTX customers; wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Alameda lenders; conspiracy to commit securities fraud against FTX investors; conspiracy to commit commodities fraud against FTX customers and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
On March 28th, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison and three years of supervised release. He also ordered the 32-year-old to pay $11 billion in forfeiture.
Bankman-Fried already expressed an intention at the time to appeal his conviction and sentence.
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