Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried asked the US Supreme Court on September 10, 2026, to overturn his conviction and order a new trial, according to CNN. The petition matters because it also seeks to reverse an $11 billion forfeiture order and challenges the evidence jurors were allowed to consider about FTX customers’ financial losses.

Bankman-Fried, commonly known as SBF, was sentenced in 2024 to 25 years in prison after prosecutors proved that he funneled billions of dollars from FTX to affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research. The funds were used for purposes including risky investments, political donations and Bankman-Fried’s personal expenses.

Challenge to evidence and forfeiture

Bankman-Fried argues that the trial court should have allowed him to present evidence that his investments ultimately performed well enough to cover potential losses for FTX customers. His appeal questions why prosecutors were permitted to introduce evidence suggesting that customers lost money while the defense could not present evidence about the investments’ performance or the ability to cover those losses.

Jeffrey Fisher, an attorney who specializes in US Supreme Court cases, described the defense’s position:

“Where the government pursues a theory of fraud under which it doesn’t matter whether any victims lost money, introducing evidence suggesting that people actually lost money is distracting and prejudicial. All the more so where the truth is the victims did not lose money, and the defendant is unable to make that clear.“

Bankman-Fried is separately challenging the $11 billion forfeiture order, arguing that it violates the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits excessive fines.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected his arguments earlier in 2026. His case could now be heard by the Supreme Court later this year.

Appeal invokes 2025 Supreme Court ruling

The petition relies largely on a recent Supreme Court decision involving a Department of Transportation contractor. The company secured a multimillion-dollar bridge-painting contract after claiming that it met requirements to involve businesses owned by members of socially vulnerable groups, but it instead established a pass-through arrangement and submitted false certifications.

After the company and one of its executives were convicted of wire fraud and conspiracy, they appealed to the Supreme Court. Their defense argued that the conduct could not constitute wire fraud without an intent to cause economic harm because the contracted work had been completed.

The Supreme Court unanimously rejected that appeal in 2025. Bankman-Fried acknowledges the ruling but uses it to advance a different argument: If prosecutors pursuing a “fraudulent inducement” theory do not need to prove actual economic losses, he argues, evidence of financial losses should not have been admitted at his trial.

His defense argues that if prosecutors may introduce such evidence, defendants must also be allowed to present evidence showing either an absence of losses or the ability to cover them.

Previous challenges and pardon request

The Supreme Court petition is the latest step in Bankman-Fried’s effort to challenge his conviction. In April 2026, a federal court in Manhattan rejected his motion for a new trial, finding that his arguments concerning “new evidence” were unfounded. Judge Lewis Kaplan also said the initiative could have been part of a strategy to rehabilitate Bankman-Fried’s reputation after FTX’s collapse.

Bankman-Fried filed an official pardon request in June after previously saying that he considered his sentence unfair. Senators Ruben Gallego and Cynthia Lummis responded by introducing a resolution seeking to prevent a pardon, amnesty or other mitigation of his punishment, citing what they described as a lack of remorse.

In July, the US Senate unanimously approved S. Res. 772, which urges that Bankman-Fried not receive a pardon or other sentence mitigation. The resolution is advisory and does not legally bind the US president.

In August, the US federal government sold Anthropic shares that had belonged to former Alameda Research and FTX executives. The US Marshals Service sold the assets to existing Anthropic investors, but the buyers, sale price and amount raised were not disclosed. Estimates cited in the source placed the shares’ current value at between $2.6 billion and more than $5 billion.

Source: Incrypted