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

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has officially withdrawn his motion for a retrial, citing concerns that he would not receive a fair hearing.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, who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for his role in FTX's 2022 collapse, had initially filed the motion through his mother, Barbara Fried, who claimed that newly discovered evidence warranted a new trial. Although Bankman-Fried drafted the motion himself while in detention, he did receive some guidance from his lawyers and family members. The motion was filed under Rule 33, which allows for a new trial to be granted based on newly discovered evidence or in the interests of justice. Bankman-Fried's appeal is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where his lawyer, Alexandra Shapiro, has argued that the original trial was fundamentally unfair due to restrictions on the evidence that Bankman-Fried could present to the jury.