Sam Bankman-Fried told a federal court he didn’t expect a fair trial from the judge overseeing his criminal case — and for that reason, he’s withdrawing his request for a new trial.
A calculated decision before the Federal Court
The former FTX chief executive filed a letter with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, withdrawing a Rule 33 motion he filed to vacate his conviction.
The withdrawal, he clarified, is not final. He dropped the motion without prejudice, meaning he can bring it back once his appeal and separate request to have another judge assigned to the case are resolved.
Bankman-Fried, 32, is currently being held at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California, where he is serving a 25-year sentence imposed following his 2023 conviction on fraud and related charges related to the collapse of FTX.
At its peak, the crypto exchange was one of the largest in the world.
Sam Bankman-Fried's letter to Judge Kaplan released publicly Wednesday. Source: CourtListener.
His decision to withdraw the motion came after Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered him to explain whether lawyers had helped him draft a prior filing — one pro se, that is, submitted without formal legal representation.
Federal prosecutors had raised doubts about whether Bankman-Fried wrote the filing himself, particularly after his mother, Barbara Fried, sent her own letter to the court. She had no legal standing to do so.
Questions about who wrote what
In his response Wednesday, Sam Bankman-Fried said he consulted his parents when drafting the letter, but described himself as “the ultimate author of the documents.”
He said the need to answer the court’s questions took time to prepare a more comprehensive response to prosecutors who opposed his new trial request. This, combined with his stated belief that Judge Kaplan would not handle the case fairly, led him to withdraw his motion.
His attempt to remove Kaplan from the case predates the filing Wednesday. Last February, Bankman-Fried asked a court to appoint another judge to rule on her new trial request, accusing Kaplan of showing “extreme prejudice.”
This request remains active. The same goes for his appeal of his conviction and sentence, which is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Sam Bankman-Fried: The Pardon Talk Did Little to Help His Cause
Outside the courtroom, Bankman-Fried has made no secret of her interest in a presidential pardon. He has reportedly publicly praised US President Donald Trump’s crypto policies and his administration’s military moves in Iran.
But Trump showed no signs of easing. Drawing on information from a January interview with The New York Times, Trump flatly stated that he had no plans to pardon the convicted FTX founder.
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