SBF Withdraws New-Trial Bid While Keeping Appeal Alive

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has withdrawn his request for a new criminal trial while continuing to appeal his conviction and sentence.

A filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, cited by Cointelegraph on April 22, said Bankman-Fried would withdraw his Rule 33 motion seeking a new trial. He left open the possibility of renewing the request after the appeal is resolved.

The decision followed Judge Lewis Kaplan's order that Bankman-Fried clarify whether he had received legal assistance while pursuing the motion on a pro se basis. Prosecutors had previously argued that the filing may have been prepared with outside help rather than by Bankman-Fried alone.

In the filing, Bankman-Fried wrote that instead of responding to the prosecution's opposition, he had been forced to focus on that issue and decided to withdraw the motion because he did not believe he could receive a fair hearing.

He had already asked that the case be reassigned to a different judge, arguing that Kaplan had shown "extreme bias." That matter and the appeal are being considered separately by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Bankman-Fried was convicted in 2023 on charges including misappropriating customer funds and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He is being held at the federal prison in Lompoc, California.