Sam Bankman-Fried Drops Retrial Bid, Citing Concerns Over Fairness

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has formally withdrawn his request for a retrial, citing doubts about receiving a fair hearing.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 the case to be reassigned. Bankman-Fried is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence after being found guilty on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the collapse of FTX in 2022. The motion for a new trial was initially filed by his mother, Barbara Fried, who claimed that newly discovered evidence warranted a retrial. Bankman-Fried stated that he drafted the motion himself while in detention at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, with limited assistance from his lawyers and family members. He clarified that although he sought input from his lawyers and parents, the final motion was largely his own work. 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.