Former FTX CEO, Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, who was recently sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, has made a request to the judge to temporarily remain incarcerated in the New York City area instead of being transferred to California.
In a filing made on April 8 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Bankman-Fried’s legal team asked Judge Lewis Kaplan to approve an order that would allow him to stay at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he has been held since August 2023. The reason for this request is to ensure easy access to his appellate counsel for his upcoming appeal against his conviction and sentencing.
Before Judge Kaplan announced the 25-year sentence on March 28, Bankman-Fried’s attorney, Marc Mukasey, stated their intention to appeal the conviction on seven felony counts. However, as of now, there has been no filing on the online portal for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit regarding this matter. Some legal experts speculate that Bankman-Fried may have a chance of having his sentence reduced based on good behavior during his time in prison.
Initially, Judge Kaplan had decided that Bankman-Fried would serve his sentence at a medium- or low-security prison in the San Francisco Bay Area, likely due to the presence of his family in the region. Prior to his bail being revoked in August 2023, Bankman-Fried had been primarily confined to his parents’ home near Stanford University in California.
Bankman-Fried is one of the few individuals connected to the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research who opted to plead not guilty and face a jury trial. Others associated with the crypto firms, such as Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, and Ryan Salame, chose to plead guilty and accept plea deals. Salame is scheduled to be sentenced on May 28, while the appearance dates for Wang, Ellison, and Singh are still unclear. Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to one felony count in a separate case involving cryptocurrency exchange Binance, will be sentenced on April 30.
In other news, it has been reported that Alex Mashinsky, the CEO of Celsius Network, is expected to receive a shorter prison sentence than Bankman-Fried.