Shamed former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried hopes to secure a pardon from Donald Trump.
The parents of the FTX co-founder have reportedly met with lawyers and others close to the president seeking clemency for their son, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud.
Stanford Law School professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried are “exploring” the possibilities of a Trump pardon, reports Bloomberg.
Bankman-Fried’s hopes of a possible pardon may be helped by the president’s support of cryptocurrencies and by the fact that the judge at the fraudster’s trial, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, also adjudicated the sexual assault and defamation lawsuits brought by New York writer E. Jean Carroll against Trump.
It was unclear if the plea has yet reached the White House. The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Trump’s swift pardon for Ross Ulbricht, founder of the dark web marketplace Silk Road who was jailed for life a decade ago, has raised hopes that he will consider freeing other white-collar felons.
Bankman-Fried, 32, has claimed his sentence imposed in March 2024, was “draconian” because FTX clients got back most of the money they lost.
The collapse of his crypto exchange exposed a $10 billion fraud, but Bankman-Fried insisted he was the victim of a market downturn.
The fallen entrepreneur didn’t donate to Trump’s campaign—he was a major Democrat donor—but he is hopeful the president and his advisers will consider the case a political prosecution.
Bankman and Fried have not commented on the report.
Ryan Salame, one of Bankman-Fried’s top lieutenants, is also planning a pardon. “If anyone pays attention for half a second, a lot of this doesn’t make any sense,” he said after being jailed last year for seven-and-a-half years for campaign finance law violations.
Sam Mangel, a consultant for white collar criminal cases who has previously worked for the president’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was jailed for contempt of Congress, and Peter Navarro, Trump’s senior trade adviser who was imprisoned for defying a congressional subpoena, told Bloomberg he is working on several pardon requests.
He said he was told by Trump advisers “not to bring any sex crimes, true crimes of violence or illegal immigration cases.”
