Retrial also fails… Has FTX founder's chance for reversal completely ended?

▲ Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX/AI-generated image ©

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried attempted to nullify his trial and gain another chance, but the court dismissed it as "unsubstantiated claims," completely blocking his attempt.

According to cryptocurrency media outlet Bitcoinist on April 29 (local time), U.S. Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Bankman-Fried's request for a retrial, pointing out that the attempt was more a strategy to restore his damaged reputation than to achieve justice. Judge Kaplan previously presided over the 2023 fraud trial and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.

Bankman-Fried claimed he could prove that FTX was not actually insolvent by presenting three new internal FTX personnel as witnesses. However, the court made it clear that they were not new witnesses. He had known them before the trial and was already aware of what testimony they would provide.

In particular, Nishad Singh testified against Bankman-Fried in court as part of an agreement with the prosecution, and Bankman-Fried claimed that Singh's testimony changed due to government pressure. The court outright denied this, calling it an "absurd conspiracy theory." Another key figure, Ryan Salame, also pleaded guilty to illegal political contributions and operating an unlicensed money transmission business and was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months in prison in May 2024, making him unable to serve as a favorable witness.

The request for a retrial itself was unusual. Bankman-Fried filed the lawsuit independently without consulting his legal team and requested that the case be assigned to a different judge than Judge Kaplan. He later requested to withdraw the lawsuit himself, stating that he could not expect a fair hearing, but this was also not accepted.

He is currently serving his sentence at the Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution in California, USA, and separate appeal procedures are ongoing. In the previous jury verdict, he was found to have moved billions of dollars of FTX customer funds to Alameda Research and used them for high-risk trading, being identified as a key person responsible for the collapse of the major exchange.

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