Sam Bankman-Fried, Who Served 3 Years for $10B Fraud, Petitions for Presidential Pardon

Sam Bankman-Fried has applied for a presidential pardon from President Trump. The application was entered Monday into the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney public database, marking the first formal step in his request for executive clemency. Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year federal prison sentence handed down in 2024 after his conviction in a $10 billion fraud case.

He requested the pardon after completion of his sentence, a designation that could restore certain civil rights but would not shorten his prison term or secure early release. In a January interview, President Trump said he had no intention of pardoning Bankman-Fried. Bankman-Fried has served three years in prison for misappropriating billions in customer funds.

Federal prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of stealing billions of dollars from customers, lenders and investors to cover losses at his hedge fund Alameda Research. Prosecutors alleged that more than $100 million in political contributions were funded with misappropriated customer money and routed through straw donors.

Bankman-Fried stated that he had also given substantial sums to Republicans, often through less-public channels.

Before FTX collapsed in November 2022, he donated millions to Democratic candidates, party committees and left-leaning political organizations, and contributed to Democratic Party committees and state Democratic organizations. His mother, Barbara Fried, helped found Mind the Gap, a Democratic donor network.

His brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, ran pandemic-preparedness advocacy efforts that worked with Democratic lawmakers.

Bankman-Fried was the founder of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that at one point was the third-largest by volume. Prosecutors called the case one of the largest financial frauds in history. Bankman-Fried is 34 years old.

A spokesperson for the White House and Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to requests for comment.