Federal Court Dismisses Sam Bankman-Fried's Bid for Retrial in FTX Case
Former FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried's motion for a new trial has been rejected by a federal judge, who characterized the request as what appears to be "a plan to rescue his reputation."
The motion for a new trial submitted by Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO and co-founder of FTX, has been rejected by a federal judge in Manhattan, who dismissed his assertions regarding newly available evidence.
In a written order released on Tuesday, Judge Lewis Kaplan, the presiding judge during Bankman-Fried's 2023 trial who subsequently handed down a 25-year prison sentence in early 2024, stated that the former executive's claims about new evidence and potential witnesses lacked any foundation.
This motion appears to be one part of a plan to rescue his reputation that Bankman-Fried hatched and even committed to writing after FTX declared bankruptcy but before he was indicted.
Judge Kaplan
In February, Bankman-Fried had submitted a request for a new trial with a different judge presiding, taking the unusual step of filing the motion independently without first consulting his legal counsel and while his conviction and sentence were under review by an appellate court.
The following day on Wednesday, Bankman-Fried sought to retract his motion, informing Judge Kaplan that he held no belief he would "get a fair hearing on this topic in front of you," a request for withdrawal that the judge subsequently rejected.
Judge Kaplan's written order stated that Bankman-Fried's assertion that three individuals who previously held executive positions at FTX could provide testimony contradicting the government's position that FTX was insolvent represented arguments that were "baseless on multiple independently sufficient levels."
None of the witnesses, for example, is 'newly discovered.' Bankman-Fried well before trial knew all three of them and purportedly knew also what he hoped they would say were they to testify.
Judge Kaplan
The former FTX chief maintained that two executives from FTX who did not provide testimony during his trial — specifically Ryan Salame, who previously served as CEO of FTX's operations in the Bahamas, and Daniel Chapsky, who formerly led data science at FTX — possessed the ability to challenge the government's assertions regarding the exchange's financial stability.
In a separate legal proceeding, Salame entered a guilty plea to charges of campaign finance law violations and running an unlicensed money-transmitting operation. His sentence of seven and a half years in prison was handed down in May 2024.
Additionally, Bankman-Fried contended that Nishad Singh, who previously served as FTX's engineering lead and who negotiated a plea agreement with prosecutors that allowed him to avoid incarceration and subsequently provided testimony against Bankman-Fried during the trial, had altered his testimony "following threats from the government."
In his ruling, Judge Kaplan noted that Bankman-Fried had the option to pursue compelling the three individuals to provide testimony but chose not to do so, and his assertions that their absence or their decisions to testify against him resulted from government intimidation "is wildly conspiratorial and entirely contradicted by the record."
A jury determined that Bankman-Fried was guilty on seven criminal counts connected to fraud and money laundering, finding that he unlawfully diverted billions of dollars in customer funds from FTX to Alameda Research, the trading firm, to engage in high-risk trading activities that played a role in the exchange's eventual downfall.
Currently, Bankman-Fried is serving his sentence at a federal correctional facility located in Lompoc, California.