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 motion seemed like a last-ditch attempt to give himself a MAGA makeover that the Trump administration absolutely wasn’t buying.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 for “masterminding one of the largest financial frauds in American history,” US District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in his order. He was convicted on all charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, commodities fraud, and money laundering.
There is already an appeal pending in another court, the judge noted. But Bankman-Fried filed a separate motion for a new trial, claiming that there were “newly discovered” witnesses and evidence that might have helped his defense, if Joe Biden’s Department of Justice hadn’t intimidated them into refusing to testify or, in one case, lying on the stand. He also asked for a new judge, wanting Kaplan to recuse himself.
However, Kaplan pointed out that “none of the witnesses” were “newly discovered.” And more concerningly, Bankman-Fried offered no evidence that the witnesses could prove the “wildly conspiratorial” theory the FTX founder raised, claiming that their absence at the trial was a “product of government threats and retaliation,” the judge wrote.
Bankman-Fried’s theory is “entirely contradicted by the record,” Kaplan said. He emphasized that granting Bankman-Fried’s request “would be a large waste of judicial resources as it could require another judge to familiarize himself or herself with an extensive and complicated record.”
Additionally, all three witnesses that Bankman-Fried claimed could give crucial testimony in his defense were known to him throughout the trial, and he never sought to compel their testimony. And the “self-serving social-media posts” of one witness who now claims that he lied when testifying against Bankman-Fried—“Ryan Salame, who pleaded guilty”—must be met with “utmost suspicion,” Kaplan said.
“If one were to take Salame at his current word, he lied under oath when pleading guilty before this Court,” Kaplan wrote. Even if taken seriously, “his out-of-court, unsworn statements could not come anywhere close to clearing the bar to warrant a new trial,” Kaplan said, deeming Salame’s credibility “highly questionable.”
