The SBF attraction mandate issued on August 4 closes Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) case on the Second Circuit appeals court docket. The one-page order affirms the judgment and provides no new reasoning.
A mandate returns a case to the trial court docket and makes an appellate ruling totally efficient. This one leaves the previous FTX chief’s 25-year jail time period in place.
What the SBF Enchantment Mandate Really Says
The US Court docket of Appeals for the Second Circuit logged it as entry 77 in case No. 24-961. It names the three judges who heard the attraction, Barrington D. Parker, Eunice C. Lee and Maria Araújo Kahn.
Then comes the operative line. The court docket “ORDERED, ADJUDGED and DECREED that the judgment of the district court docket is AFFIRMED.”
Nothing else is determined. Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, clerk of court docket, signed it for the panel. A stamp on the foot data the mandate issuing on 08/04/2026.
Why the June Ruling Nonetheless Governs
The substance landed nearly two months earlier. On June 12, the panel rejected the FTX founder’s attraction and left the seven-count conviction intact. It additionally saved the sentence Choose Lewis Kaplan imposed in March 2024.
Parker wrote for the panel, describing what the jury had heard.
“Whereas he was publicly reassuring prospects, buyers and regulators that FTX buyer funds had been protected, he was concurrently utilizing FTX as his personal private piggy financial institution, spending buyer funds on actual property, political contributions and investments,” Barrington D. Parker, Circuit Choose, Second Circuit opinion.
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The panel additionally upheld the roughly $11 billion forfeiture, discovering Congress might tie forfeiture to a defendant’s features. Kaplan had already denied a retrial movement in April.
The One Strand Left
Just one judicial route survives. Bankman-Fried might petition the US Supreme Court docket for a writ of certiorari, usually inside 90 days of judgment. The court docket hears a small fraction of such petitions.
He has individually filed a pardon software with the Justice Division. Senators Cynthia Lummis and Ruben Gallego have since launched a decision opposing any SBF pardon.
In the meantime, the cash strikes on a separate observe. FTX collectors acquired a fifth spherical of repayments on the finish of July. The mandate settles the appellate query, and what the Supreme Court docket makes of it’s the just one nonetheless open.
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