Ex-âCrypto Kingâ Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly shopping for a Trump pardon
The parents of disgraced former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried are looking for a get-out-of-jail-free card for their son and are considering the possibility that President Donald Trump may hand it to them.Thatâ??s according to an exclusive report in Bloomberg, which revealed that Bankman-Fried...
Samuel Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of FTX, faces a potential de facto life sentence after being found guilty of a massive fraud scheme
The parents of disgraced former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried are looking for a get-out-of-jail-free card for their son and are considering the possibility that President Donald Trump may hand it to them.
That’s according to an exclusive report in Bloomberg, which revealed that Bankman-Fried’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried – both Stanford Law School professors – have spent recent weeks meeting with lawyers and other individuals considered to be part of Trump’s circle about ways to secure a pardon for their 32-year-old son.
Convicted in one of the biggest financial fraud cases in history, Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year prison sentence for defrauding investors in his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, which collapsed in 2022.
He was sentenced last year, but Trump’s pardon frenzy since returning to the White House – which includes pardons for more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants as well as for individuals like Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht – “has encouraged a rush among white-collar defendants eager to put their case before Trump.”
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“In seeking Trump’s mercy, Bankman-Fried — who went from industry darling to villain overnight — would be appealing to a man who went from crypto skeptic to booster,” Bloomberg stated. “The crypto industry and the libertarian movement strongly advocated for a pardon for Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for drug trafficking and money laundering that occurred on his site.”
But, as Bloomberg noted Thursday, Bankman-Fried “doesn’t currently have the same groundswell of support” as others who made Trump’s pardon list. He has made the case, however, that his sentence was “draconian” since losses to FTX customers have mostly been recovered.
“We have been hearing from people in prison, from people recently sentenced who haven’t reported to the Bureau of Prisons yet, from people who have been indicted,” Jeffrey Grant, the operator of a New York legal and advisory firm for white-collar defendants, told the publication. “They are looking for somebody who knows somebody.”
Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, a former Trump lawyer, told Bloomberg he’s also fielding calls seeking similar assistance.
“I said call me back in a month,” Dershowitz is quoted as saying. “Right now Trump is busy doing other things.”
It remains to be seen whether Trump would use his pardon power on the crypto fraudster.
Neither one of Bankman-Fried’s parents commented on the report. A lawyer who has worked on Bankman-Fried’s appeal also did not comment on the possibility, nor did the White House.