A Manhattan federal choose has denied FTX CEO and co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s movement for a brand new trial, rejecting his declare that there’s new proof.
Decide Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw Bankman-Fried’s trial in 2023 and sentenced him to 25 years in jail in early 2024, wrote in an order on Tuesday that Bankman-Fried’s declare of recent proof and witnesses was baseless.
“This movement seems to be one a part of a plan to rescue his status that Bankman-Fried hatched and even dedicated to writing after FTX declared chapter however earlier than he was indicted,” Decide Kaplan wrote.
Bankman-Fried in February had requested a new trial to be overseen by a distinct choose, making the uncommon transfer of submitting a movement with out consulting his legal professionals and whereas an appeals court docket was contemplating his conviction and sentence.
On Wednesday, Bankman-Fried asked to withdraw his request, telling Decide Kaplan he didn’t imagine he would “get a good listening to on this matter in entrance of you,” which the choose denied.
Sam Bankman-Fried appeared on a podcast in March 2025 whereas being held on the Metropolitan Detention Heart in Brooklyn. Supply: YouTube
In his order, Decide Kaplan wrote that Bankman-Fried’s declare that three former FTX executives might counter the federal government’s arguments that FTX was bancrupt was “baseless on a number of independently ample ranges.”
“Not one of the witnesses, for instance, is ‘newly found.’ Bankman-Fried nicely earlier than trial knew all three of them and purportedly knew additionally what he hoped they’d say had been they to testify,” Kaplan wrote.
Bankman-Fried argued that two former FTX executives who didn’t testify — Ryan Salame, the previous CEO of FTX’s Bahamian arm and Daniel Chapsky, FTX’s former head of knowledge science — might counter the federal government’s claims concerning the trade’s monetary well being.
Salame individually pleaded responsible to violating marketing campaign finance legal guidelines and working an unlawful money-transmitting enterprise. He was sentenced to seven and a half years in jail in Could 2024.
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He additionally argued that Nishad Singh, FTX’s former engineering lead, who reduce a plea take care of prosecutors to keep away from jail and testified in opposition to Bankman-Fried at trial, changed his testimony “following threats from the federal government.”
Decide Kaplan stated Bankman-Fried might have sought to compel testimony from the trio however didn’t, and his declare that their absence or resolution to testify in opposition to him was a results of authorities threats “is wildly conspiratorial and completely contradicted by the file.”
Bankman-Fried was discovered responsible on seven prison expenses associated to fraud and cash laundering, with a jury discovering he illegally transferred billions of {dollars} of FTX buyer cash to the buying and selling agency Alameda Analysis to make dangerous trades that contributed to the trade’s collapse.
Bankman-Fried is being held in a federal jail in Lompoc, California.
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