{"id":85360,"date":"2026-04-24T04:01:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=85360"},"modified":"2026-04-24T04:01:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:01:32","slug":"sam-bankman-fried-backs-off-new-trial-request-keeps-pressure-on-judge-removal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=85360","title":{"rendered":"Sam Bankman-Fried Backs Off New Trial Request, Keeps Pressure On Judge Removal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sam Bankman-Fried has told a federal court he does not expect a fair hearing from the judge overseeing his criminal case \u2014 and because of that, he is pulling his request for a new trial.<\/p>\n

A Calculated Move In Federal Court<\/h2>\n

The former FTX chief executive filed a letter Wednesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, withdrawing a Rule 33 motion he had been pursuing to overturn his conviction.<\/p>\n

The withdrawal, he made clear, is not final. He dropped the motion without prejudice, meaning he can bring it back after his appeal and his separate request to have a different judge assigned to the case are resolved.<\/p>\n

Bankman-Fried, 32, is currently held at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California, where he is serving a 25-year sentence handed down after his 2023 conviction on fraud and related charges tied to the collapse of FTX.<\/p>\n

At its peak, the crypto exchange was one of the largest in the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

His decision to pull the motion came after Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered him to explain whether lawyers had helped him draft an earlier filing \u2014 a pro se document, meaning one submitted without formal legal representation.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors had raised doubts about whether Bankman-Fried had written the filing on his own, particularly after his mother, Barbara Fried, sent her own letter to the court. She had no legal standing to do so.<\/p>\n

Questions About Who Wrote What<\/h2>\n

In his Wednesday response, Sam Bankman-Fried said he consulted with his parents while writing the letter but described himself as the \u201cultimate author of the documents.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the need to respond to the court\u2019s questions had taken time away from preparing a fuller response to prosecutors opposing his new trial request. That, combined with his stated belief that Judge Kaplan would not treat the matter fairly, led him to withdraw the motion.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

His bid to have Kaplan removed from the case predates Wednesday\u2019s filing. Back in February, Bankman-Fried asked a court to assign a different judge to rule on his new trial request, accusing Kaplan of showing \u201cextreme prejudice.\u201d<\/p>\n

That request remains active. So does his appeal of both his conviction and his sentence, which is pending before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.<\/p>\n

Sam Bankman-Fried: Pardon Talk Has Done Little To Help His Cause<\/p>\n

Outside the courtroom, Bankman-Fried has made no secret of his interest in a presidential pardon. According to reports, he has posted publicly praising US President Donald Trump\u2019s crypto-related policies and his administration\u2019s military moves in Iran.<\/p>\n

But Trump has shown no sign of extending any relief. Based on reports from a January interview with The New York Times, Trump said flatly that he had no plans to pardon the convicted founder of FTX.<\/p>\n

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from TradingView<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam Bankman-Fried has told a federal court he does not expect a fair hearing from the judge overseeing his criminal case \u2014 and because of that, he is pulling his request for a new trial. A Calculated Move In Federal Court The former FTX chief executive filed a letter Wednesday in the US District Court […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-85360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}