Sam Bankman-Fried, the former crypto billionaire convicted for fraud in 2023, lost an appeal to overturn his conviction and 25-year prison sentence Friday, Reuters reported. 

A New York jury found Bankman-Fried guilty on two charges of wire fraud and five conspiracy counts in November 2023 for his actions while running FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that declared bankruptcy in 2022 after once being valued at more than $26 billion.

Bankman-Fried pleaded his case to a three-judge panel of Manhattan’s 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who unanimously rejected his plea on Friday, calling the evidence against him “conservatively stated, robust,” according to Reuters. 

“While he was publicly reassuring customers, investors and regulators that FTX customer funds were ​safe, he was simultaneously using FTX as his own personal piggy bank, spending customer funds on real estate, ​political contributions, and investments,” Circuit Judge Barrington Parker stated, per Reuters.

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Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, leaves court in New York, US, on Wednesday, July 26, 2023. (Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Bankman-Fried became a prolific political donor in the years leading up to his conviction. 

While the one-time crypto magnate appeared to strongly favor Democrats with his donations — his $40 million contributions to Democrats in the 2022 midterms made him the party’s second-biggest donor after George Soros — he poured a significant amount funds into Republican coffers as well. 

According to Michael Lewis’ book about Sam Bankman-Fried’s rise and fall, the former crypto billionaire explored whether a large payment could persuade then-former President Donald Trump not to run for president again. Now, Sam Bankman-Fried signaled he’s like a presidential pardon from Trump.

Bankman-Fried made the admission in an interview with Fox Business’ Susan Li, who asked him if he wanted a pardon.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried spoke to FOX Business from prison, saying he’d “absolutely” be interested in a pardon from President Donald Trump. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images; Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images / Getty Images)

“Absolutely,” he told Li, adding, “It would be obviously, you know, ultimately up to the president, not up to me.”

Bankman-Fried also insisted he was innocent of defrauding or stealing from his customers. 

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“I didn’t steal user funds either,” he told Li. “Customers have been repaid now 170% or so on their deposits. It’s one of the very few cases where the platform was over-collateralized, where customers were more than made whole. And yet there was, you know, not just a criminal investigation, but a prosecution. And, you know, dozens of years of sentence[s].”

From right, Terrence A. Duffy, CEO of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX US Derivatives, Christopher Edmonds, chief development officer of the Intercontinental Exchange, and Christopher Perkins, president of CoinFund, test (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images / Getty Images)

FTX’s bankruptcy estate confirmed to FOX Business that customers are being repaid in full with some getting returns as high as 118%. However, those estimations are calculated using crypto prices from November 2022, a near-bottom in the cryptocurrency market.

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Federal prosecutors alleged during the trial that Bankman-Fried systematically diverted billions of dollars in customer deposits to cover trading losses at his private hedge fund, Alameda Research, orchestrating what they described as a financial fraud of historic proportions. 

Fox Business’ Kristen Altus and Susan Li contributed to this report.

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company is committing $1 million to help restore the White House South Lawn after Sunday’s UFC event at the White House.

Following the June 14 Freedom 250 event – a centerpiece of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration – the company will provide funding, products and technical expertise to the National Park Service as it restores the historic lawn.

For investors, the high-profile White House project serves as a showcase for Scotts’ research and development division. It comes as the $3.3 billion company navigates a stagnant U.S. housing market where traditional lawn ownership faces headwinds from flat homeownership rates and changing urban demographics.

“The scale and scope of our R&D department is impressive,” Nate Baxter, Scotts Miracle-Gro chief operating officer, told FOX Business, noting that the company is leveraging its research muscle to expand into organic and biological alternatives to synthetic fertilizers. “I do believe Scotts Miracle-Gro has the horsepower in terms of the investment we make in R&D, to bring naturals and organics, to bring biologicals.”

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The White House South Lawn is set to undergo a restoration effort following this weekend’s UFC Freedom 250 event. (Courtesy of Scotts Miracle-Gro)

The upcoming mixed martial arts event has drawn considerable attention regarding the physical impact on the White House grounds, which currently feature a massive, 92-foot-high temporary venue known as “the Claw” erected on the turf.

Because the grounds are managed by the National Park Service, Scotts is structuring the contribution as a philanthropic donation.

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President Donald Trump is pictured with members of the Scotts Miracle-Gro team in the Oval Office. Scotts plans to provide funding, products and technical expertise for the restoration of the White House South Lawn. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)

The restoration is more complex than a standard landscaping project. Washington, D.C.’s climate presents unique challenges, with freezing winters and hot, humid summers.

To navigate these conditions, Scotts brought its research team to the White House to review proprietary seed options with President Donald Trump, who brought his own turf-management experience to the meeting.

“The president knows a lot about grass. I think his history and past with golf courses,” Baxter noted. “It was really interesting to watch our tour scientists, and President Trump, talk through each of these.”

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Scotts Miracle-Gro researchers review turfgrass samples as part of the company’s effort to develop a custom seed blend for the White House South Lawn. (Scotts Miracle-Gro)

Scotts presented multiple seed varieties before settling on a customized four-seed blend engineered to withstand heavy staging equipment and helicopter landings.

“Creating a proprietary blend for the White House’s unique conditions presented a distinct set of challenges,” Matthew Koch, R&D Lawns Research Fellow at Scotts Miracle-Gro, said in a press release. “It is a functional lawn that has to stand up to hundreds of events and thousands of people each year.”

The physical restoration will roll out in phases over the next year. The National Park Service will first disassemble the UFC infrastructure, followed by a previously scheduled public infrastructure project on the grounds.

By July, Scotts will begin restoration by installing mature sod to quickly stabilize and re-green the space before transitioning to its custom seed blend later in the year.

“We’re gonna work, we’ve chosen a sod, and it’s not the same as the blend, but it has some of the same cultivars, we’re gonna help them restart, and get a piece established,” Baxter said.

Once cooler autumn temperatures arrive, technicians will overseed the lawn with the custom four-seed blend selected for the project. A final round of overseeding and fertilization in spring 2027 will complete the restoration.

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While the exact White House mixture is a one-time donation to the National Park Service and will not be commercialized, Scotts confirmed that the underlying cultivars are present in their retail product lines.

By spring 2027, the company expects the restoration to be complete, bringing the South Lawn back from a weekend of UFC fights to its more familiar role hosting state ceremonies, public events and Marine One landings.