NEW YORK (AP) — Federal appeals court judges in Manhattan reacted skeptically Tuesday when a lawyer for once high-flying cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried argued that his fraud conviction was unfair and should be overturned.
The attorney, Alexandra Shapiro, told a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the judge at his 2023 trial left the defense “cut off by the knees” by limiting what evidence it could present, particularly about advice he had received from lawyers.
Bankman-Fried, 33, is serving a 25-year-prison term after a jury found that he defrauded customers and investors of billions of dollars while he operated FTX, once the world’s second-largest crypto exchange.
The company collapsed into bankruptcy in November 2022 just months after it seemed to be thriving, with a Super Bowl advertisement and celebrity endorsements.
“Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trial was fundamentally unfair because the jury only got to hear one side of the story,” Shapiro said.
Circuit Judge Barrington D. Parker said his reading of the trial record found “very substantial evidence” supporting the conviction.
“Are you seriously suggesting to us that if your client had been able to testify about the role that attorneys played in preparing these various documents, the not-guilty verdicts would have rolled in?” Parker asked. His skepticism was shared by two other judges: Eunice C. Lee and Maria Araujo Kahn.
The appeals court will rule at a later date.
Parker said defense attorneys did not assert at trial that Bankman-Fried relied on the advice of attorneys for all of his decisions.
“You gave that up and had this vague there-were-attorneys-out-there-somewhere defense,” Parker said.
Shapiro said the government unfairly told the jury that thousands of investors lost billions of dollars they could never recover.
“The picture the government painted was a false one,” she said. “Mr. Bankman-Fried should have been able to tell his story. ... The jury should have had the full picture. And yet, Mr. Bankman-Fried, sits in prison.”
She argued that Judge Lewis A. Kaplan improperly limited Bankman-Fried's testimony, preventing the jury from hearing the full role attorneys played in the decisions he made and that customer funds were never stolen and a temporary liquidity crisis at FTX did not mean they would never get their money back.
In fact, she said, 98% of all creditors have received 120% of their investment and the estate still has $8 billion to pay about $2 billion in claims.
A government attorney, Nathan Rehn, countered that the trial was fair and the evidence against Bankman-Fried was overwhelming.
He noted that three of the four people who knew that Bankman-Fried was illegally using billions of dollars in customer deposits to fund his investments and political donations testified at the trial against him.
FILE - FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves Federal court on July 26, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
FILE - FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves Manhattan federal court, June 15, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
U.S. President Donald Trump said the military could end its Iran offensive in two to three weeks and will shift responsibility for the Strait of Hormuz to countries that rely on it for oil and shipping as the White House announced a prime-time presidential address Wednesday evening on the war.
Trump expressed frustration Tuesday with allies who have been unwilling to do more to support the U.S. war effort, telling them to “go get your own oil.” Trump recently has vacillated between insisting there is progress in diplomatic talks with Iran and threatening to widen the war.
He said the U.S. “will not have anything to do with” what happens next in the vital waterway that has been closed by the Islamic Republic. Instead, he told reporters, the responsibility for keeping the strait open will rest with countries that rely on it. Gulf states rely on the waterway for both exports and imports, including food, and 20 percent of the world's oil supply flows through it.
U.S. gas prices jumped past an average of $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022 on Tuesday, as the Iran war continues to push fuel prices higher worldwide. Analysts say those high fuel costs will trickle into groceries as businesses’ transportation and packaging costs pile up.
Here is the latest:
Iran’s foreign minister has acknowledged receiving direct messages from U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff.
The comments by Abbas Araghchi came in an interview with pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera aired late Tuesday. He insisted that the messages didn’t constitute negotiations.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly described Iran and America has having talks over the war, while Pakistan has been a key intermediary along with Egypt and Turkey during the conflict.
“I receive messages from Witkoff directly, as before, and this does not mean that we are in negotiations,” he said.
He added: “We do not have any faith that negotiations with the U.S. will yield any results. The trust level is at zero.”
Asked about a possible ground offensive by the U.S., Araghchi said “we are waiting for them.”
“We know very well how to defend ourselves,” Araghchi reportedly told the Qatar-based broadcaster. “In a ground war, we can do it even better. We are completely ready to confront any sort of ground attack. We hope they do not make such a mistake.”
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said in a preliminary count early Wednesday 21 people were also wounded in the strike in Jnah.
The strike came without warning, and Israel did not declare the target. When it does, it often says it is targeting operatives from the Hezbollah militant group.
Emergency workers rushed to the scene to search for victims.
Israel’s military warned the public Wednesday a missile was incoming from Yemen, yet another attack from the country’s Houthi rebels who have just entered the war on Iran’s side.
Air raid sirens went off in southern Israel, from Beersheba to the Mediterranean coast.
The warning, just around dawn, broke a long lull, more than 19 hours since the last time Israel’s military warned of an incoming missile launch from Iran, and more than six hours from the last alarms in the northern part of Israel, which in past days received near-constant fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A drone attack by Iran and its allies hit a fuel tank at Kuwait International Airport, sparking a fire, authorities said.
The state-run KUNA news agency said the attack early Wednesday sparked a “large fire” at the airport.
It said there were no immediate injuries from the attack and firefighters were working to control the blaze.
Kuwait International Airport has been attacked before by Iran during the war. The KUNA report suggested the attack may have been launched by Iranian-supported militias in Iraq with Tehran’s support.
In another strike, Bahrain said early on Wednesday morning that it was working to extinguish a fire at a business facility that resulted from an Iranian attack.
Israel said early Wednesday it struck a plant supplying Iran’s theocracy with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, to allegedly use in a chemical weapons program. Iran acknowledged the strike on Tofigh Daru factory, but insisted it only supplied “hospital drugs” used in medical operations.
The strike happened Tuesday, both the Israelis and the Iranians said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a picture of the factory in Tehran, writing on X: “The war criminals in Israel are now openly and unashamedly bombing pharmaceutical companies.”
Hospitals extensively use fentanyl to treat severe pain. But a small amount of the drug can be fatal.
Both Israel and the United States have warned in recent years Iran was experimenting with fentanyl in munitions. The U.S. previously pointed to Iranian academic research studying how Russia likely used a fentanyl derivative during the 2002 Moscow theater hostage seizure by Chechen militants.
Israel alleged Tofigh Daru supplied fentanyl to an advanced research institute in Tehran, known by its acronym SPND. The U.S alleges SPND has conducted research and testing that could be applicable to the development of nuclear explosive devices and other weapons.
The United Arab Emirates has barred Iranians from entering or transiting the country as the war rages, three major airlines said Wednesday.
Long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad, as well as the lower-cost airline FlyDubai, made the announcements on their websites.
Entry rules can sometimes be opaque in the autocratic United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms, the three airlines agreed on the order. It said holders of 10-year Golden Visa residency permits could still enter the country.
Authorities have offered no official comment. But Dubai has already shut down the city-state’s Iranian Hospital and Iranian Club, institutions that date back to the time of the shah.
Residents and Israeli security forces inspect a site struck by an Iranian missile in Petah Tikva, Israel, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A man inspect the wreckage of an Iranian missile that landed near the West Bank village of Marda, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike hits a building near the airport road in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A family who fled Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon warm themselves by a bonfire next to tents used as shelters in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
