Sam Bankman-Fried Drops Request for New Trial, Citing Concerns Over Fairness

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has formally withdrawn his motion for a new trial, citing doubts about receiving a fair hearing. In a letter to the presiding judge, Bankman-Fried expressed his intention to potentially refile the motion after the resolution of his direct appeal and a related request for reassignment. The initial motion for a retrial was submitted by his mother, Barbara Fried, who claimed that newly discovered evidence warranted a retrial. Bankman-Fried, currently serving a 25-year sentence for his role in FTX's 2022 collapse, drafted the motion himself while in detention, with minimal assistance from his lawyers and family members. He clarified that, although his lawyers and parents provided editorial suggestions and helped with printing the document, he was the primary author of the letter to the judge. The appeal is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where his attorney, Alexandra Shapiro, argued that the original trial was 'fundamentally unfair' due to limitations on the evidence Bankman-Fried could present to the jury.