Samuel Bankman-Fried, the imprisoned former crypto executive and billionaire, has asked the Trump administration for a pardon.
In 2024, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison and $11 billion in forfeiture on a raft of fraud and conspiracy charges tied to the collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange two years earlier.
The crypto fraudster asked this year for a “Pardon after Completion of Sentence,” according to a Justice Department website, though it doesn’t specify on what date he filed for the reprieve.
Prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried, known by his nickname SBF, of misappropriating billions of dollars of customer funds for personal use, political donations and repayment on billions of dollars in loans tied to a sister trading fund. The Justice Department called the scheme “one of the largest financial frauds in history.”
In an interview with Fox Business earlier Monday, Bankman-Fried maintained the original prosecution was unjust and that his customers have been more than properly compensated for any losses.
“I didn’t steal user funds either,” he said. “Customers have been repaid now 170 percent 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].”
In January, President Donald Trump told The New York Times he had no intention of pardoning Bankman-Fried.
The Independent has contacted the White House and Justice Department for comment.
This is a breaking news story and will updated with new information.
