Sam Bankman-Fried makes his last stand

Since Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud last year, he has hired a new lawyer known for his showmanship in the courtroom. A group of sympathetic law professors has urged a reappraisal of his actions. And his parents have turned for help to former employees of FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange he founded.

From a federal detention center in Brooklyn, 31-year-old Bankman-Fried has continued to fight his case behind the scenes as he argues for a lenient sentence and prepares to appeal his conviction. On Tuesday, his lawyers will file a legal memo in U.S. District Court in Manhattan arguing he does not deserve to go to prison for the rest of his life.

The filing is a crucial step before Bankman-Fried’s sentencing on March 28, when the federal judge overseeing his case, Lewis A. Kaplan, will decide how long the former billionaire should be jailed on charges that carry a maximum penalty of stands for 110 years. But it is just one part of a long-term strategy, orchestrated by Mr. Bankman-Fried’s family and friends, to undo his convictions and bring about a public reappraisal of his leadership at FTX.

Since last year’s trial, Mr. Bankman-Fried has hired Marc Mukasey, who once represented former President Donald J. Trump, to oversee his conviction, as well as a separate attorney at the law firm Shapiro Arato Bach to handle the appeal to trade. His parents, Stanford University law professors Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, have also been involved in the defense, helping people write letters for their son that will be included in the memo.

Natalie Tien, a former assistant to Mr. Bankman-Fried at FTX, said she wrote a letter for his sentencing memo after exchanging emails with Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried.

“I don’t hold a grudge against him, and I feel sorry for his parents,” Ms. Tien said.

A spokesman for Mr Bankman-Fried declined to comment. Representatives for Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried did not respond to requests for comment.

Federal prosecutors will outline their own sentencing recommendation in a filing due March 15. Even if Judge Kaplan decides not to impose the maximum sentence, Mr. Bankman-Fried could still face decades behind bars.

The judge “could still impose a very serious sentence, given the young Mr Bankman-Fried; say a prison sentence of 30 or 35 years,” said Miriam Baer, ​​vice dean at Brooklyn Law School.

A spokesperson for Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, declined to comment.

Before FTX collapsed in November 2022, Mr Bankman-Fried was one of the most prominent figures in the renegade crypto industry, a widely celebrated billionaire whose face could be seen on billboards and magazine covers.

In October 2023, a federal jury convicted him of stealing $8 billion from FTX clients to finance political contributions, investments in other companies and lavish real estate purchases.

Mr Bankman-Fried has maintained his innocence and promised to appeal. This month he replaced his trial lawyers, Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell, with Mr. Mukasey, who has a reputation for making powerful courtroom presentations.

Last year, Mr. Mukasey scored a victory in his defense of Trevor Milton, the founder of electric truck maker Nikola, who was convicted in 2022 of defrauding investors. A federal judge sentenced Mr. Milton in December to four years in prison, far less than the 11 years prosecutors had requested.

In parallel with Mr. Mukasey, he works as an appellate attorney and former prosecutor. Alexandra Shapiro, partner at Shapiro Arato Bach. It is expected that after the conviction, they will hear Mr. Bankman-Fried will file.

Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried also played behind-the-scenes roles. Last month, Ms. Tien said, she received a text message from one of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s supporters, asking if she would help with the memo. She then received a follow-up email from the FTX founder’s parents, explaining the criminal process and urging her to write about their son “from the heart.”

They were “kind of testing the waters,” Ms. Tien said in an interview. “I said ‘yes’ almost immediately.”

Law professors who know Mr Bankman-Fried’s parents have also brought his case.

In January, two close family friends, Yale Law professor Ian Ayres and Stanford Law professor John Donohue, wrote: an essay for the Project Syndicate websitearguing that FTX had enough assets “all along” to make its customers whole.

“Whatever else might be said about Bankman-Fried, he was a brilliant businessman,” Mr. Ayres and Mr. Donohue wrote.

Another law professor, Jonathan Lipson of Temple University, said in an interview that he worked with David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania law school on an academic article criticizing Sullivan & Cromwell, the law firm that oversaw the bankruptcy from FTX.

In September, Mr. Lipson co-wrote a letter in the bankruptcy case calling for the appointment of an independent investigator to review Sullivan & Cromwell’s actions, including its close cooperation with federal prosecutors. He said he spoke to Mr. Bankman-Fried and his mother last year after another law professor at Stanford spoke out about the case and offered to put them in touch.

In their article, Mr. Lipson and Mr. Skeel argue that Sullivan & Cromwell “may have distorted the criminal justice process” by giving prosecutors broad access to FTX’s resources and data, according to an unpublished draft shared with The New York Times.

A spokesperson for Sullivan & Cromwell declined to comment. In court filings, prosecutors have described the information sharing as “routine practices of companies cooperating with an investigation.”

Mr Bankman-Fried faces great opportunities. Criminal convictions are rarely overturned on appeal.

Mr. Bankman-Fried has been housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since last summer and has spent much of his time working on the case, a person with knowledge of the matter said. He also shared crypto market tips with the guards, the person said, recommending investments in the digital currency Solana.

This month, Mr Bankman-Fried left the detention center for his first appearance in open court since the trial, a hearing to approve his new legal representation. In a Manhattan courtroom, Mr. Bankman-Fried was clean-shaven and wearing a loose-fitting brown prison uniform. Sometimes he turned and smiled at the reporters sitting in the gallery.

J. Edward Moreno reporting contributed.