FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried has formally filed for a presidential pardon, more than two years after being convicted of the billion-dollar collapse of his then-thriving cryptocurrency empire.
The 34-year-old businessman submitted the request to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, according to the agency’s website, requesting a “post-sentence pardon.”
Bankman-Fried has been using social media and interviews with conservative outlets to try to obtain clemency from President Donald Trump, whose use of the pardon power in his second term has already benefited dozens of people convicted of white-collar crimes. In January, Trump told New York Times that he had no plans to pardon Bankman-Fried.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 after being found guilty of running a fraud at FTX that caused $10 billion in losses to creditors, customers and investors.
A White House spokesman declined to comment, but referred to Trump’s statements in the interview. New York Times. A Justice Department spokesperson also declined to comment. Representatives for Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bankman-Fried’s petition follows the Justice Department process used every year by thousands of people seeking clemency — a system that Trump often ignored in his second term. Parallel to this formal channel, there is a kind of heated market for presidential pardons, in which some lawyers charge up to US$1 million to put together cases and take them to the White House for analysis, according to the Bloomberg News. Bankman-Fried’s document does not say who filed the request.
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“For sure”
In a phone interview with Fox Business published Monday, Bankman-Fried said she “absolutely” wants a pardon from the White House. Fox Business had also previously reported his request for pardon.
“Obviously, at the end of the day, that’s up to the president, not me,” Bankman-Fried said.
Bankman-Fried is also awaiting a decision from the New York federal appeals court, which is considering the former billionaire’s request to overturn his conviction and sentence. The decision could come at any time.
From a California prison, the former Democratic Party mega-donor has been trying to rebuild his battered image while making public statements of support for the president. Posts on Bankman-Fried’s X account praised Trump’s actions related to the war with Iran and some decisions involving presidential pardons.
The former cryptocurrency executive is not the only one convicted of a high-profile financial crime to seek a presidential pardon in recent weeks. Martin Shkreli, widely known as “Pharma Bro” after being convicted of securities fraud in 2017, also filed a request for clemency, according to the Office of the Pardon Attorney website.
Shkreli, now 43, was convicted of manipulating shares of a biotechnology company he founded. He left federal prison in 2022, after serving almost seven years in prison.
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An attorney for Shkreli did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the request. Shkreli, who also did not respond to an email, posted about the issue on social media last month.
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