Sam Bankman-Fried, the imprisoned former CEO of FTX, reportedly filed a motion for a new trial in the Southern District of New York today, citing Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The filing, reported by the Inner City Press, was supported by a declaration from attorney Daniel Chapsky and comes as SBF continues to dispute the circumstances surrounding FTX’s bankruptcy and his conviction.
In a series of recent posts on X, SBF claimed he never approved the bankruptcy filing and that lawyers effectively forced the company into Chapter 11.
According to a court filing from January 2023, SBF instructed FTX.US not to be included in the bankruptcy because the tech team confirmed it was unaffected by customer deficits.
“The money was always there, and FTX was always solvent,” he wrote in the thread. “So they lied, said I stole billions of dollars and bankrupted FTX.”
Attorneys, however, insisted on including FTX.US because it had cash to cover legal fees, and installed their own management to control the companies, SBF claims.
At the start of the thread, SBF also alluded to being a victim of a “political war” waged by former U.S. President Joe Biden.
Sam Bankman-Fried: FTX was solvent
SBF has repeatedly alleged that prosecutors withheld evidence demonstrating FTX’s solvency, and that the trial excluded critical information that could have negated intent. He also accused prosecutors of targeting former FTX executive Ryan Salame and exerting pressure on Salame’s pregnant fiancée to secure a guilty plea.
Currently serving a 25-year sentence for seven counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to the exchange’s $8 billion collapse, SBF frames his conviction as politically motivated “lawfare.”
For context, Bankman-Fried was once the CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, which collapsed in late 2022, triggering one of the most high-profile failures in crypto history.
The exchange, valued at $32 billion at its peak, filed for bankruptcy after a liquidity crisis exposed that customer funds had been misused to support risky trades at Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research.
Investigations revealed a web of alleged mismanagement, including unreported loans to affiliated entities, weak internal controls, and questionable accounting practices.
The collapse sent shockwaves through the crypto ecosystem, wiping out billions in customer assets and shaking investor confidence. Regulators, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), launched probes into potential fraud and violations of securities law.
Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO and is currently serving out his prison sentence. President Donald Trump has said that he has no intention of pardoning Sam Bankman-Fried