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Sam Bankman Fried has backed away from one post conviction fight, but not the broader court battle around his FTX case. A new filing shows he no longer wants to press his current bid for a new trial before Judge Lewis Kaplan, while still keeping his appeal and request for a different judge alive.
Good to Know
Sam Bankman Fried has withdrawn his request for a new trial in the Southern District of New York, but he did not let go of his wider challenge to the case. In the latest filing, he said he wants to pull the Rule 33 motion for now and revisit it later, after the court rules on his direct appeal and his request to reassign the matter to a different judge.
The filing came after Judge Lewis Kaplan asked Bankman Fried to explain whether lawyers helped with an earlier pro se request. Prosecutors had raised doubts after a March filing seeking more time for the new trial effort, especially because his mother, Barbara Fried, had also sent a letter to the court on his behalf even though she did not have standing in the case.
Bankman Fried told the court he was the one who wrote the filing, though he said he discussed it with his parents. He then argued that he did not expect a fair hearing from Kaplan and asked to withdraw the new trial motion without prejudice. That leaves room for him to renew it later.
The judge issue remains active. Back in February, Bankman Fried asked for a different judge to handle the new trial request, claiming Kaplan showed extreme prejudice. Nothing in the new letter appears to change that request or the direct appeal of his conviction and sentence.
Bankman Fried, once the face of FTX before its collapse, was convicted on fraud related charges in 2023 and later received a 25 year prison sentence. As of Wednesday, he was being held at Federal Correctional Institution Lompoc I in California.