Who Is Lewis Kaplan? NY Mobster Gotti, Prince Andrew, Donald Trump — Sam Bankman-Fried Trial Judge Has Seen It All

• Judge Kaplan presided over Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison’s fraud trials.
• Previously, Kaplan has overseen cases involving John Gotti, Prince Andrew, Kevin Spacey, and Donald Trump.
• He is a no-nonsense judge with little patience for misbehaving defendants.

Caroline Ellison and Sam Bankman-Fried have something in common: not only a past romantic and business relationship but also Lewis A. Kaplan, a judge who presided over the trials for both former FTX executives.

Kaplan is a New York judge known for his command of the courtroom and short patience for diversionary legal maneuvers. 

Lewis Kaplan’s Storied Judicial Career

Over the years, Judge Kaplan has presided over some of the most high-profile trials of modern American history.

In 2011, he sentenced the Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Ghailan to life imprisonment for his role in Al Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. 

Kaplan also handed down a life sentence to Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who received a conviction for terrorism charges in 2014.

As a senior judge in the Southern District of New York, in 2010, Kaplan was assigned to preside over the cases of 14 Gambino crime family members, including Onofrio “Noel” Modica, who was convicted of attempting to tamper with witnesses in the 1992 trial of mob boss John Gotti.

More recently, Kaplan oversaw separate sexual assault lawsuits brought against Prince Andrew and Kevin Spacey. The parties settled the first case out of court in 2021. In 2022, the court cleared Spacey of charges.

Finally, this year, Kaplan acted as the presiding judge in the case of E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump.

After considering Carroll’s rape, sexual assault, and defamation allegations, the jury awarded Carroll a total of $5 million in damages . Trump is currently appealing the decision.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s Sentencing

Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced former cryptocurrency wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison on Thursday.

Bankman-Fried, who oversaw the collapse of FTX, a once-prominent cryptocurrency exchange, received an order to pay a $11 billion forfeiture. The sentence falls between the defense’s request of 6.5 years and the government’s proposed 40 to 50 years.

Before sentencing, Bankman-Fried delivered what may be his final public statement. During the hearing, victims of the FTX collapse expressed their anger and frustration, criticizing the firm representing FTX in its bankruptcy proceedings.

In a podcast, former New York prosecutor Rebecca Mermelstein said the judge appeared to have “lost some of his patience with the defendant’s conduct, which is not the place you want to be.”

Kind Words On Ellison

While Kaplan seemed to disregard SBF, the same cannot be said for his former girlfriend and business partner, Caroline Ellison.

She told the judge, “I think on some level my brain can’t even truly comprehend the scale of the harm it caused. That doesn’t mean I don’t try. I am so so sorry.”

Kaplan commended Ellison for her “very, very substantial” cooperation in the case, highlighting the consistency of her testimony. He noted that her statements aligned seamlessly with the documents presented to the jury and her prior communications with prosecutors.

“I’ve seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years here. I’ve never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison,” he added.