Key Takeaways
Sam Bankman-Fried petitioned the US Supreme Court to overturn his seven-count fraud conviction and an $11.02 billion forfeiture tied to the collapse of FTX.
The petition argues the trial judge wrongly barred evidence that FTX customers were later made whole, and that the forfeiture violates the Eighth Amendment ban on excessive fines.
At least four justices must agree to hear the case, and the government can respond first, so review is far from guaranteed.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the failed crypto exchange FTX, asked the US Supreme Court on September 10 to throw out his fraud conviction and the $11.02 billion forfeiture that came with it, according to The Block. He is serving a 25-year sentence after a jury found him guilty on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering for using customer deposits to cover losses at his trading firm Alameda Research.
The petition, reportedly led by Stanford law professor Jeffrey Fisher, makes two main arguments. The first is that the trial court blocked his lawyers from showing that FTX and Alameda held enough assets to eventually repay customers, who have since been made whole with interest through the bankruptcy. The second is that the $11 billion forfeiture is so large it violates the Eighth Amendment, which bars excessive fines.
Both arguments face long odds. In June, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, sentence, and forfeiture, leaning on the Supreme Court's 2025 Kousisis decision, which held that a scheme can be wire fraud even when victims suffer no net financial loss, per Unchained. For the justices to take the case, at least four of the nine must vote to grant review, and the federal government gets to respond first.
The filing lands as crypto tries to move past the FTX era. Regulators recently closed their cases against Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, and the industry is still fighting over what counts as a real, transparent claim on assets, the question at the center of the AMC and Robinhood dispute over synthetic stock tokens. FTX's core failure was that customer funds were never where they were supposed to be, and no one outside could see it.
People Also Ask
What is Sam Bankman-Fried asking the Supreme Court to do?
He is asking the Court to overturn his seven-count fraud conviction and cancel the $11.02 billion forfeiture order from the FTX collapse.
Why does he say his conviction was unfair?
His petition argues the trial judge barred evidence that FTX customers were eventually repaid, so jurors heard about losses without hearing that money was recovered.
Why does he say the $11 billion forfeiture is illegal?
He claims the amount is so large that it violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on excessive fines.
Will the Supreme Court hear the case?
It is uncertain. At least four of the nine justices must vote to grant review, and the government can file a response before that vote.