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Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has rescinded his motion for a retrial, citing doubts about receiving a fair hearing. In a letter to the presiding judge, Bankman-Fried expressed his intention to potentially renew the motion after the resolution of his direct appeal and a related request for reassignment. Currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy related to FTX's collapse in 2022, Bankman-Fried initially filed the motion for a new trial through his mother, Barbara Fried, who claimed that newly discovered evidence warranted a retrial. Bankman-Fried revealed that he personally drafted the motion while in detention at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, with limited assistance from his lawyers and family members. Although he sought input from his lawyers and parents, Bankman-Fried maintained that he was the primary author of the letter to the judge. The motion was filed under Rule 33, a federal court procedure allowing for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence or in the interest of justice. Bankman-Fried's appeal is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where his attorney, Alexandra Shapiro, argued during oral arguments in November that the trial was fundamentally unfair due to restrictions on the evidence Bankman-Fried could present to the jury.