"Intimidated witnesses"…FTX founder takes aim at US court and Biden administration
Summary
- Founder Sam Bankman-Fried said the US Biden administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ) intimidated witnesses in connection with the FTX collapse.
- Citing new evidence, Bankman-Fried said his conviction and 25-year prison sentence should be overturned.
- He criticized Judge Lewis Kaplan for alleged bias and questioned the fairness of a retrial, and said President Donald Trump has indicated he has no plans to pardon him.
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Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which filed for bankruptcy in 2022, claimed on the 11th (local time) that the Biden administration had "intimidated witnesses" in connection with the FTX collapse.
In a post on X, Bankman-Fried said that "new evidence shows the Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) intimidated multiple witnesses into silence or pressured them to change their testimony," adding that "the guilty verdict against me should therefore be vacated." Bankman-Fried was previously sentenced to 25 years in prison by a US court in 2024 over the FTX bankruptcy.
He also directly criticized the judge who oversaw his trial. He said Judge Lewis Kaplan "must recuse himself from this case," arguing that "given his history of showing bias against defendants and steering trials in an unfavorable direction, he cannot render a fair judgment." Kaplan is the judge handling the retrial related to the FTX case.
Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried previously sought a pardon from the administration after Donald Trump was inaugurated as US president. Trump said last month that he has no plans to pardon Bankman-Fried.
JOON HYOUNG LEE
gilson@bloomingbit.ioCrypto Journalist based in Seoul
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