Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is calling for a new trial, alleging that everyone including the presiding judge had already presumed his guilt before his legal battle even started.
In a new filing with the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, lawyers for Bankman-Fried say that their client witnessed nothing but one-sided rulings throughout the trial presided by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.
According to the lawyers, Judge Kaplan even ridiculed Bankman-Fried in front of the jury.
“Throughout the proceedings, the district court made little pretense of objectivity or even-handedness. In addition to eviscerating Bankman-Fried’s defenses, the judge repeatedly made biting comments undermining the defense and defense counsel, even deriding the defendant’s own testimony during the preview hearing and in front of the jury.”
The lawyers also say that the trial was far from fair after everyone had assumed Bankman-Fried’s guilt.
“Fair trial principles were swept away in a ‘Sentence first-verdict afterwards’ tsunami, as everyone rushed to judgment following FTX’s collapse. Sam Bankman-Fried was never presumed innocent. He was presumed guilty – before he was even charged. He was presumed guilty by the media. He was presumed guilty by the FTX debtor estate and its lawyers. He was presumed guilty by federal prosecutors eager for quick headlines. And he was presumed guilty by the judge who presided over his trial.”
Sam Bankman-Fried is now asking the court to remand the case for a new trial “before a different judge.”
On March 28th, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison and three years of supervised release for facilitating a scheme that siphoned over $8 billion in FTX customer funds to his trading firm, Alameda Research.
He also ordered the 32-year-old to pay $11 billion in forfeiture.
In April, Bankman-Fried filed an appeal in an effort to overturn his conviction and sentence.
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