Sam Bankman-Fried has officially requested a pardon from President Trump. He is currently serving a 25-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy convictions connected to a financial scandal.
Politico reports that the Department of Justice’s website states that Bankman-Fried applied for relief through a “Pardon after Completion of Sentence.” He previously relayed his desire for a pardon in an interview with Fox News.
“I assume that you would want a pardon from the White House?” asked FOX Business correspondent Susan Li, to which Bankman-Fried responded, “Absolutely. It would be obviously, you know, ultimately up to the president, not up to me.”
Bankman-Fried has claimed his prosecution was wrongful. “I didn’t steal user funds either,” he told Li. “Customers have been repaid now 170% or so on their deposits. It’s one of the very few cases where the platform was over-collateralized, where customers were more than made whole. And yet there was, you know, not just a criminal investigation, but a prosecution. And, you know, dozens of years of sentence[s].”
“I can only tell you what I think and, you know, ultimately, customers have been repaid again nearly twice what they had on the platform,” Bankman-Fried added, “and it’s a great disservice to them that it has taken three years.”
Bankman-Fried was sentenced to prison in 2024. According to the Department of Justice, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX “misappropriated billions of dollars of customer funds deposited with FTX, defrauded investors in FTX of more than $1.7 billion, and defrauded lenders to Alameda of more than $1.3 billion.” He was previously found guilty on “two counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.”
