Sam Bankman-Fried Withdraws New Trial Motion, Cites Judicial Bias Concerns

Table of Contents The disgraced founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency platform FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has pulled his request for a new trial. He submitted written notice on Wednesday to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. If Sam Bankman-Fried did nothing illegal, he might have been the best VC in history What SBF bought vs. what it's worth today: • Cursor: ~$200K → ~$3B (+1,499,900%)• Anthropic: ~$499M → $82.3B (+16,400%)• SpaceX: ~$200M → ~$15B (+7,400%)• Solana: ~$189M → $5.1B… pic.twitter.com/PbZNcp0IJh — Michael Burry Stock Tracker ♟ (@burrytracker) April 22, 2026 According to the filing, Bankman-Fried expressed doubt that Judge Lewis Kaplan would provide him with impartial consideration on this issue. The withdrawal was made without prejudice, preserving his option to submit the motion again at a future date. This development followed judicial inquiry from Judge Kaplan requesting clarification about whether legal counsel assisted in preparing the document. The filing in question represents a Rule 33 motion, a legal mechanism through which defendants petition courts for new trials. Bankman-Fried stated that he personally conceptualized, wrote, and performed the majority of legal analysis for the motion while detained at a Brooklyn correctional facility. He indicated that he did not seek guidance from his legal representative during this process. He acknowledged sharing preliminary versions with his parents, Barbara and Joseph Bankman-Fried. His mother had previously submitted correspondence to the court on his behalf, despite lacking legal authority to do so. “They made editorial and organizational suggestions, some of which I incorporated into the motion,” Bankman-Fried explained. His parents also assisted with printing the document, as he had lost access to word processing equipment. Last February, Bankman-Fried had petitioned for a different judge to hear his new trial motion. He asserted that Kaplan demonstrated “extreme prejudice” toward him throughout the legal proceedings. Bankman-Fried received guilty verdicts in November 2023 across all seven fraud charges. The criminal counts stemmed from the misappropriation of client assets at FTX, which had previously ranked among the world’s most prominent cryptocurrency trading platforms. Federal prosecutors characterized it as “likely the largest fraud in the last decade,” making parallels to the Bernie Madoff scandal. His trading firm, Alameda Research, played a pivotal role in the purported fraud scheme. He received a 25-year prison term and is presently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution, Lompoc I, in California. Bankman-Fried maintains an active appeal contesting both his conviction and sentencing in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. His decision to withdraw the Rule 33 motion has no bearing on that appellate process. He has also made public overtures seeking presidential clemency from Donald Trump. Through social media platforms, he expressed support for Trump’s cryptocurrency initiatives and foreign policy decisions. Nevertheless, Trump made clear during a January New York Times interview that he has no plans to grant Bankman-Fried a pardon. The petition requesting judicial reassignment also remains unresolved. As of Wednesday, Bankman-Fried indicated he plans to await the outcome of his direct appeal before potentially resubmitting the new trial motion.