FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) asked the US Supreme Court on Thursday to review his 2023 fraud conviction and 25-year sentence, the last legal door left open to him.
His lawyer, Stanford law professor Jeffrey Fisher, confirmed the filing. The justices are free to refuse it without hearing a word of argument.
What SBF is Asking the Justices to Do
The filing seeks a writ of certiorari. That is a request for the court to agree to hear a case, not a hearing itself. Bloomberg reported the news, but it had not appeared on the court’s public docket at the time of writing.
A jury convicted Bankman-Fried in November 2023 over the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research. Judge Lewis Kaplan imposed a 25-year sentence and a $11 billion forfeiture the following March.
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Why the June Ruling Left So Little Room
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his appeal on June 12. Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote that the trial judge was right to exclude evidence that FTX could have repaid its customers.
“FTX customers were defrauded as soon as Bankman-Fried transferred their money to Alameda regardless of how strongly he believed he might later return the money,” Aljazeera reported.
BeInCrypto flagged the deadline in August, when the Second Circuit mandate issued and left a 90-day window for a Supreme Court petition. Thursday’s filing lands inside it.
What It Means for FTX Creditors
Nothing in this petition touches the money. The bankruptcy estate runs separately from the criminal case, and FTX creditor repayments continue regardless of what the justices decide.
That separation matters to his argument. Many customer classes have recovered their full claims valued at November 2022 prices, yet the appeals court held that later repayment does not erase the original deception.
The court receives several thousand petitions each term and grants only a low single-digit share. Most refusals arrive as one line on an order list, months later, with no reasoning attached.
His pending pardon application is the other track, and it has not moved either.
Polymarket traders now price a 2% chance he walks free in 2026, down from 7% when he filed for clemency in June.
Source: BeInCrypto
