In an order denying Sam Bankman-Fried’s request for a new trial, a judge accused the disgraced FTX founder of wasting precious court resources on wild conspiracies. To the judge, the proposal seemed like a last-ditch effort to give himself a MAGA makeover that the Trump administration wasn’t exactly buying.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 for “plotting one of the largest financial frauds in American history,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in his order. He was convicted on all charges, including wire fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, commodities fraud and money laundering.
An appeal is already pending in another court, the judge said. But Bankman-Fried filed a separate petition for a new trial, claiming there were “newly discovered” witnesses and evidence that could have helped her defense if Joe Biden’s Justice Department had not intimidated her into refusing to testify or, in one case, lying on the stand. They also demanded a new judge, and wanted Kaplan to recuse himself from the case.
However, Kaplan reported that “no witnesses” were “newly discovered”. More worryingly, Bankman-Fried provided no evidence that witnesses could prove the “wildly conspiratorial” theory raised by the FTX founder, claiming that her absence from the trial was “the product of government threats and retaliation,” the judge wrote.
Bankman–Fried’s theory is “completely contradicted by the record”, Kaplan said. He emphasized that granting Bankman-Fried’s request “would be a huge waste of judicial resources because it might require another judge to become familiar with the extensive and complex record.”
Additionally, Bankman-Fried claimed that all three witnesses could provide crucial testimony in her defense, that she knew them throughout the trial, and that she never tried to coerce their testimony. And the “self-serving social-media posts” of a witness who now claims he lied when testifying against Bankman-Fried — “Ryan Salame, who pleaded guilty” — should be met with “extreme skepticism,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan wrote, “If one takes Salame at his present words, he lied under oath when he pleaded guilty before this court.” Even if taken seriously, “outside the court, his unsolicited statements cannot come close to obviating the need for a new trial,” Kaplan said, deeming Salame’s credibility “highly questionable.”
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