Thursday 10 September. Sam Bankman-Fried asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his conviction, according to a petition read by the New York Times and CNN. He is serving 25 years. A jury found him guilty in 2023. Nothing is quashed yet. The Court is not obliged to open the file.

FTX, his exchange, collapsed in November 2022. Prosecutors said he took customer money for his sister firm, Alameda, his donations, his lifestyle. He denies it. The New York appeals court affirmed the verdict in June, the AP wrote. Judge Kaplan also ordered about $11 billion forfeited. That judgment, and that sum, is what the defence now attacks.

There were always more than enough assets available to repay customers (as they now have been repaid, with substantial interest).— Petition as cited by the New York Times, 10 September 2026

What he wants to be allowed to say

The defence says the trial was cut short. He was not allowed, it says, to show that customers had not lost money, and that there were always enough assets to repay them. Decrypt notes a point: the bankruptcy plan repaid claims in November 2022 dollars, when bitcoin was around $16,000. That is not “everyone got their bitcoin back at today’s price.” The petition also calls the forfeiture a “crushing fine,” against the Eighth Amendment’s bar on excessive fines. The Block ties the case to a 2025 ruling, *Kousisis*: you can be guilty of fraud even if the intent was not to leave the victim poorer in the end. Jeffrey Fisher, for the defence, told CNN that, on that theory, talking about victim losses at trial became “distracting and prejudicial.”

What the Court has not done yet

Filing a petition is not a new trial. The Supreme Court hears about 1% of the cases sent to it, Decrypt notes. Four of nine justices must first vote to open. Nothing shows they will. Bankman-Fried has also asked Donald Trump for a pardon; the Senate opposed it unanimously in July, per Decrypt. We had seen him surface elsewhere, around the FTT token. Here the file is judicial. The sentence stands.

What 10 September holds

  • Held. Supreme Court petition, 10 Sept., read by the NYT and CNN. 25 years, 2023 verdict, appeal affirmed in June. About $11 billion to forfeit. The defence wants to speak about repayments. Nothing is overturned.
  • Not held. That the Court takes the case. That he is innocent. That customers got their bitcoin back at today’s price. Advice to buy FTT, or to bet on a release.

Sources: New York Times, CNN, Decrypt, The Block, AP. Nothing here is advice.