SBF's legal team will argue in the appeal trial that SBF was "presumpted guilty" after the FTX collapse.

On Tuesday, FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried filed for appeal to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence. His lawyers argued that after the cryptocurrency exchange crash in 2022, the media, prosecutors, and others sought to bring him down, and that Judge Lewis Kaplan's hasty conviction led to his wrongful conviction, claiming SBF was "presumptively guilty even before being indicted." In the appeal brief, the lawyers focused on the 80-year-old Judge Kaplan, accusing him of "repeatedly favoring the government and obstructing the defense," and demanding a retrial and a different judge. SBF's team argued that the judge pressured juries by suggesting they work overtime, providing free dinners and transportation home, and by constantly mocking SBF and questioning his testimony. SBF, currently serving a sentence in California, is not expected to attend the hearing.