CoinDesk
Sam Bankman-Fried, the imprisoned founder of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, has formally filed a clemency petition with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney while serving a 25-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy. The application appeared Monday in DOJ records, listed as pending review.
The petition arrives despite Trump telling the New York Times in January that Bankman-Fried should not count on receiving a pardon — a notable contrast with the president's track record of pardoning other high-profile crypto figures, including Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, and the co-founders of BitMEX.
Bankman-Fried has spent months publicly aligning himself with Trump's positions through prison-approved communications, praising the president's Iran strikes, crediting him with reforming the SEC by replacing Gary Gensler with Paul Atkins, and appearing on Tucker Carlson's show. His parents, Stanford Law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, have separately reached out to individuals in Trump's orbit to explore clemency options. The former FTX CEO is simultaneously pursuing an appeal of his 2023 conviction, meaning the clemency petition and the legal appeal are running on parallel tracks.
CryptoSlate
WatcherGuru
TheBlock
CoinTelegraph
Crypto News
WuBlockchain