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Since Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud final yr, he has employed a brand new lawyer recognized for courtroom showmanship. A gaggle of sympathetic legislation professors has pushed for a reappraisal of his actions. And his dad and mom have turned for assist to former workers of FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency change he based.
From a federal detention heart in Brooklyn, Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, has continued to battle his case behind the scenes, as he argues for a lenient sentence and prepares to enchantment his conviction. On Tuesday, his attorneys are scheduled to file a authorized memo within the U.S. District Courtroom in Manhattan, making the case that he doesn’t need to go to jail for the remainder of his life.
The submitting is a vital step earlier than Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sentencing on March 28, when the federal decide overseeing his case, Lewis A. Kaplan, will resolve how lengthy to imprison the onetime billionaire on prices that carry a most sentence of 110 years. But it surely’s just one prong of a long-shot technique orchestrated by Mr. Bankman-Fried’s household and associates to reverse his conviction and engineer a public reappraisal of his management at FTX.
Since final yr’s trial, Mr. Bankman-Fried has employed Marc Mukasey, who as soon as represented former President Donald J. Trump, to supervise his sentencing, in addition to a separate lawyer on the legislation agency Shapiro Arato Bach to deal with the enchantment. His dad and mom, the Stanford College legislation professors Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, have additionally been concerned within the protection, serving to line up folks to jot down letters for his or her son that will probably be included within the memo.
Natalie Tien, a former assistant to Mr. Bankman-Fried at FTX, mentioned she wrote a letter for his sentencing memo after exchanging emails with Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried.
“I don’t have grudges over him, and I do really feel dangerous for his dad and mom,” Ms. Tien mentioned.
A spokesman for Mr. Bankman-Fried declined to remark. Representatives for Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Federal prosecutors are set to stipulate their very own sentencing advice in a submitting due March 15. Even when Decide Kaplan decides to not impose the utmost sentence, Mr. Bankman-Fried may face many years behind bars.
The decide “may nonetheless give a really critical sentence given how younger Mr. Bankman-Fried is; say, a 30- or 35-year sentence,” mentioned Miriam Baer, vice dean at Brooklyn Legislation College.
A spokesman for Damian Williams, the U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of New York, declined to remark.
Earlier than FTX collapsed in November 2022, Mr. Bankman-Fried was one of the vital distinguished figures within the renegade crypto trade, a broadly celebrated billionaire whose face was splashed throughout billboards and journal covers.
In October, a federal jury convicted him of stealing $8 billion from FTX’s clients to finance political contributions, investments in different corporations and lavish actual property purchases.
Mr. Bankman-Fried has maintained he’s harmless and pledged to enchantment. This month, he changed his trial attorneys, Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell, with Mr. Mukasey, who has a fame for forceful courtroom displays.
Final yr, Mr. Mukasey scored a victory in his protection of Trevor Milton, the founding father of the electrical truck producer Nikola, who was convicted in 2022 of defrauding buyers. A federal decide sentenced Mr. Milton in December to 4 years in jail, far lower than the 11 years that prosecutors had requested.
Working in parallel to Mr. Mukasey is an appellate lawyer and former prosecutor, Alexandra Shapiro, a associate at Shapiro Arato Bach. She is anticipated to file Mr. Bankman-Fried’s enchantment after the sentencing.
Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried have additionally performed a task behind the scenes. Final month, Ms. Tien mentioned, she acquired a textual content from considered one of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s supporters, asking whether or not she would assist with the memo. Then she bought a follow-up e mail from the FTX founder’s dad and mom explaining the sentencing course of and urging her to jot down “from the center” about their son.
They had been “form of like testing the waters,” Ms. Tien mentioned in an interview. “I just about simply mentioned ‘sure’ instantly.”
Legislation professors who know Mr. Bankman-Fried’s dad and mom have additionally pressed his case.
In January, two shut household associates, the Yale Legislation professor Ian Ayres and the Stanford Legislation professor John Donohue, wrote an essay for the web site Undertaking Syndicate, arguing that “all alongside” FTX had sufficient belongings to make its clients complete.
“No matter else is likely to be mentioned about Bankman-Fried, he was an excellent businessman,” Mr. Ayres and Mr. Donohue wrote.
One other legislation professor, Jonathan Lipson at Temple College, mentioned in an interview that he was working with David Skeel of the College of Pennsylvania legislation faculty on an educational paper criticizing Sullivan & Cromwell, the legislation agency overseeing FTX’s chapter.
In September, Mr. Lipson co-wrote a quick within the chapter case arguing for the appointment of an impartial examiner to overview Sullivan & Cromwell’s actions, together with its shut collaboration with federal prosecutors. He mentioned that he spoke with Mr. Bankman-Fried and his mom final yr after one other Stanford legislation professor reached out in regards to the case and supplied to place them in touch.
Of their article, Mr. Lipson and Mr. Skeel argue that Sullivan & Cromwell “could have distorted the felony justice course of” by giving prosecutors wide-ranging entry to FTX’s assets and information, in response to an unpublished draft shared with The New York Occasions.
A Sullivan & Cromwell spokesman declined to remark. In court docket filings, prosecutors have described the knowledge sharing as “routine practices by corporations cooperating in an investigation.”
Mr. Bankman-Fried faces lengthy odds. Felony convictions are not often overturned on enchantment.
Mr. Bankman-Fried has been housed at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Heart since final summer time and has spent a lot of his time engaged on the case, an individual with data of the matter mentioned. He has additionally shared crypto market ideas with the guards, the individual mentioned, recommending investments within the digital coin Solana.
This month, Mr. Bankman-Fried left the detention heart for his first public court docket look for the reason that trial, a listening to to authorize his new authorized illustration. In a Manhattan courtroom, Mr. Bankman-Fried was clean-shaven and wore a loosefitting brown jail uniform. At occasions, he circled and smiled on the reporters sitting within the gallery.
J. Edward Moreno contributed reporting.
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