Overview
- Oral arguments are scheduled for Nov. 4 in New York, with each side allotted 10 minutes to address whether the 2023 trial was conducted properly.
- The defense challenges Judge Lewis Kaplan’s handling of the case, highlighting an unusual pre-testimony “dry run” and asserting the jury heard an incomplete solvency defense.
- The panel will review procedural and legal questions rather than re-litigate the fraud and conspiracy charges underlying the 25-year sentence.
- A Supreme Court decision in Kousisis v. United States narrowed intent-based defenses by allowing fraud convictions where funds were taken under misleading pretenses without proven intent to cause economic harm.
- With long odds on appeal, Bankman-Fried’s camp is courting clemency as a fallback, even as analysts call a pardon improbable despite Trump’s recent pardons of Changpeng Zhao and Ross Ulbricht.