Bankman-Fried Drops Retrial Request, Citing Concerns Over Fairness

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has officially withdrawn his motion for a retrial, citing concerns that he would not receive a fair hearing. Bankman-Fried, who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for his role in the exchange's 2022 collapse, indicated that he may refile the motion after the outcome of his direct appeal and a related request for reassignment have been decided. The initial motion for a new trial was submitted by Bankman-Fried's mother, Barbara Fried, who claimed that newly discovered evidence warranted a retrial. Bankman-Fried himself played a significant role in drafting 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 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.