Bankman-Fried's Supreme Court petition gets 32 more days before the government must answer

The extension is 32 days, Oct. 15 to Nov. 16 ^[14]. Two decisions stand between the petition and any new trial. The first, whether to hear the case, could come in late 2026 or early 2027 ^[2]. Only after a grant does the second begin, with a ruling in the term ending June 2027 or the one after ^[3]. By our count that puts any merits ruling in 2027 or later ^[15].

The pardon has no such sequence. Bankman-Fried is seeking one from President Trump while pursuing the court ^[4]. Cointelegraph describes the decision as one that may never come ^[5], and the outlet links a report that the Senate unanimously adopted a resolution opposing clemency ^[6]. We see three ways this goes: the government answers on Nov. 16 and the court declines the case early in 2027; the court takes the case and rules in the term ending June 2027 or the one after; or a pardon arrives without notice and makes both moot. We would plan on the slow path, with the petition a 2027 event and the pardon undated. That view is wrong if the justices move faster than Cointelegraph's window, or if a pardon lands before Nov. 16.

On the merits, Jeffrey Fisher of Hecker Fink LLP, who represents Bankman-Fried at the court, puts the issue in one sentence. "Our whole point is the theory the government chose makes it irrelevant whether any customers lost money or, if so, how much," Fisher said ^[11]. The Second Circuit treated the same fact as the end of the argument. In June 2026 it wrote that customers "were defrauded as soon as Bankman-Fried transferred their money to Alameda regardless of how strongly he believed he might later return the money" ^[9].

The petition also has to get around Kousisis. It says the court held in 2025 that prosecutors can seek decades-long sentences where people are induced to part with money, even without pecuniary harm ^[12]. As the better fit, it offers a 2007 First Circuit ruling, United States v. Carpenter ^[13]. Mark Bini, a Reed Smith partner and former federal and state prosecutor, told Cointelegraph that the chance of the court accepting the arguments and granting a new trial "seems low" ^[16]. He called leaning on Carpenter over Kousisis an "uphill battle" but found the forfeiture question "really interesting" at $11 billion ^[17].