US prosecutors: “No reason to reopen Sam Bankman-Fried trial”

US prosecutors have filed a court submission arguing that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s request for a retrial should be denied.

According to Bloomberg on the 12th (local time), prosecutors said in a court filing that Bankman-Fried failed to show his conviction was unjust and that there is no basis to hold a new trial.

In 2023, Bankman-Fried was found guilty by a jury on fraud and conspiracy charges tied to the collapse of FTX, a cryptoasset (cryptocurrency) exchange, and is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence.

Earlier, in court papers he drafted himself in February, he sought a retrial, arguing that if two former FTX executives who did not testify at trial were to appear as new witnesses, they could rebut prosecutors’ claims. The individuals he cited were former FTX executives Daniel Chapsky and Ryan Salame.

Prosecutors, however, countered that those individuals do not qualify as new witnesses. “Both were well known to the defense before trial,” prosecutors said, adding that because the defense could have sought their testimony at the time, their post-trial views cannot be claimed as “new evidence.”

Prosecutors also dismissed Bankman-Fried’s claim that his prosecution was a political attack by the administration of former President Joe Biden as “baseless.” They noted that “the defendant was a major donor to Democrats in 2020 and 2022, and the campaign finance offenses were also related to those donations.”

The case is being heard in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.