FTX’s former boss, Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted founder of the collapsed crypto exchange, has withdrawn his motion for a new criminal trial while simultaneously escalating his push to have the presiding judge removed from his case, the latest legal maneuver from the man serving a 25-year prison sentence for one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.
What happened in Wednesday’s court filing
In a letter filed on April 22 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Bankman-Fried formally pulled his Rule 33 motion, a legal request for a new trial based on allegedly newly discovered evidence, but made clear the decision was a tactical pause, not a surrender.
He explicitly reserved his right to refile once his direct appeal and a pending request for judicial reassignment are resolved.
The filing came in response to a March 23 order from Judge Lewis Kaplan, who directed Bankman-Fried to clarify whether he had received outside legal help drafting his earlier pro se filings, documents filed on his own behalf without an attorney of record.
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Prosecutors had flagged a suspicious FedEx package mailed from Menlo Park, California, raising questions about who was really writing his court documents, given that Bankman-Fried is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution, Lompoc I, in California.
Bankman-Fried acknowledged consulting his parents, both Stanford University law professors, but maintained he authored every filing himself. According to his letter, his parents made editorial and organizational suggestions and helped print the documents since he no longer has access to a word processor in prison.
He also disclosed sharing early drafts with a New York attorney he originally hired for the motion before deciding to represent himself, saying that lawyer had no meaningful input into the final version.
He then delivered a pointed reason for the withdrawal: being forced to address the court’s authorship questions left him with no adequate time to properly counter prosecutors’ opposition to the retrial motion. More tellingly, he stated plainly that he does not believe he would receive a fair hearing on this matter before Judge Kaplan.
Bias claim and the judge battle
Kaplan remains a central target of Bankman-Fried’s post-conviction strategy. In February 2026, Bankman-Fried filed a formal request for case reassignment, accusing Kaplan of showing extreme prejudice throughout the original trial.
That motion is currently pending before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, alongside his direct appeal of both the conviction and the 25-year sentence. Neither proceeding was affected by Wednesday’s withdrawal.
In March 2026, Bankman-Fried posted on X drawing a comparison between his case and that of Delaware Court of Chancery Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who stepped aside from three Elon Musk-related lawsuits after his legal team alleged she had shown bias.
Bankman-Fried argued that Kaplan’s conduct during his trial, which he described as open disdain, pre-verdict commentary, and questionable juror treatment, met or exceeded the same threshold for recusal.
Prosecutors have been unsparing in their opposition. In a 44-page filing submitted in March 2026, they called Bankman-Fried’s political persecution narrative incoherent, noting that he was among the largest Democratic donors in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles.
They also rejected his claim that FTX was solvent and that customers had since been made whole through bankruptcy proceedings, calling the argument factually wrong and deeply misleading. At the height of the crisis, FTX held approximately 105 bitcoin against customer claims approaching 100,000 bitcoin.
How FTX collapsed, and why it matters
The broader context stretches back to November 2022, when FTX imploded after a spike in customer withdrawals exposed an eight-billion-dollar hole in the exchange’s balance sheet.
As the probe progressed, it came to light that customer funds were diverted into Alameda Research, the trading arm of FTX, for risky bets, personal loans to execs, political funding, and luxury real estate.
In December 2022, Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas and was convicted on seven felony counts. In November 2023, Judge Kaplan sentenced him in March 2024.
The pardon route also appears firmly closed for now. Despite Bankman-Fried’s sustained and highly vocal public praise of President Donald Trump’s crypto policies on X, Trump said in a January 2026 New York Times interview that he had no intention of pardoning the former FTX CEO.
What comes next for SBF
With the retrial motion now formally withdrawn, Bankman-Fried’s remaining legal hopes rest entirely with the Second Circuit. Judges in the appellate court there had previously displayed skepticism of key defense arguments, ruling out a full reversal.
A successful reassignment bid, however, could revive the retrial path before a new judge. Absent that outcome, Bankman-Fried is on track to remain at Lompoc-I well into the 2040s.
