A federal appeals court has upheld Sam Bankman-Fried’s conviction and his 25-year prison sentence, closing the door on his main appeal against the FTX fraud verdict. The three-judge panel from the Second U S Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the original trial’s fairness, rejecting arguments that Bankman-Fried was wrongly blocked from presenting certain evidence.
His legal team had argued that lawyer involvement in FTX’s operations should count toward his defense, and also pressed for a new trial before a different judge. But the panel rejected those claims and left intact the conclusion that the fraud case did not turn on whether customers might eventually have been repaid.
With this ruling, the 25-year sentence and more than $11 billion in financial penalties remain in effect. From here, Bankman-Fried’s legal options narrow considerably: he can ask the full Second Circuit to rehear the case or petition the U S Supreme Court, but neither route is guaranteed. For now, the FTX fraud case stands as a settled criminal judgment unless a higher court decides to step in.