Prosecutors Reject Bankman-Fried Retrial Bid Over Evidence Claims

Federal prosecutors told a judge to deny Sam Bankman-Fried’s shot at a new trial. Bloomberg reported the filing Thursday. The government argues the bankman-fried retrial motion fails basic legal standards.

Defense cited two former FTX executives. Ryan Salame and Daniel Chapsky. Prosecutors say their testimony doesn’t qualify as newly discovered evidence. Both men were known to the defense before the 2023 trial. That’s the problem.

The legal standard is clear. “Newly discovered evidence” means evidence the defense couldn’t have found during the original trial. Salame and Chapsky worked at FTX. The defense knew about them. They could have called them as witnesses. They didn’t.

Bankman-Fried filed the bankman-fried retrial motion in February. He argued the executives’ testimony could challenge the prosecution’s account of FTX’s financial condition before collapse. The defense claims their statements weaken the government’s narrative presented to jurors.

Judge Kaplan ordered prosecutors to respond by March 11. They did. The response hammers the motion’s legal foundation. Courts rarely grant retrials. The bar is high. You need evidence that couldn’t have been discovered earlier. Evidence that would likely change the verdict. This doesn’t meet that test.

The motion is separate from Bankman-Fried’s main appeal. That’s pending in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Two different legal tracks. The appeal challenges the conviction itself. The bankman-fried retrial request asks for a do-over based on new witnesses.

A jury convicted Bankman-Fried in November 2023. Seven counts. Fraud and conspiracy tied to customer fund misuse at FTX and Alameda Research. The verdict came after a month-long trial. Prosecutors showed how customer deposits funded Alameda’s trading losses, executive real estate purchases, and political donations.

Judge Kaplan sentenced him to 25 years in March 2024. That’s a quarter-century. Bankman-Fried is 32 years old. He’ll be 57 when he gets out—if he serves the full term.

The retrial push faces long odds. I’ve covered enough trials to know how courts handle these motions. Judges don’t revisit jury verdicts lightly. The evidence at trial was overwhelming. FTX customer funds vanished. $8 billion in liabilities. Alameda used customer deposits as a personal slush fund. Three former executives testified against him. Caroline Ellison. Gary Wang. Nishad Singh. All cooperated with prosecutors.

Salame and Chapsky couldn’t have changed that. The defense had access to them during discovery. They chose not to call them. You can’t claim “newly discovered” when you had the evidence sitting in front of you.

Meanwhile, pardon speculation swirls. Bankman-Fried praised Donald Trump’s crypto stance on social media Feb. 1. Some interpreted that as angling for clemency. Trump shut that down fast. He told The New York Times on Jan. 9 he wouldn’t pardon Bankman-Fried. No intention whatsoever.

That leaves the appeal and this retrial motion. The appeal has better odds. Appellate courts review legal errors—improper jury instructions, wrongly admitted evidence, prosecutorial misconduct. The Second Circuit could find reversible error. It’s unlikely but possible.

The retrial motion? Dead on arrival. Prosecutors demolished the legal basis. Judge Kaplan will likely deny it. He ran the trial. He knows the evidence. He’s not going to second-guess a jury verdict based on witnesses the defense could have called the first time.

Every fraud defendant wants a second bite. Courts don’t give it. Not without extraordinary justification. “We should have called these witnesses” isn’t extraordinary. It’s buyer’s remorse.

The bankman-fried retrial effort illustrates a common post-conviction strategy. Throw everything at the wall. File every motion. Challenge every ruling. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn’t. But when you’re facing 25 years, you try everything.

Judge Kaplan hasn’t ruled yet. The motion sits on his docket. But the outcome is predictable. Prosecutors laid out why the motion fails legally. The defense didn’t discover new evidence. They failed to use available evidence. That’s a strategic choice, not grounds for retrial.

FTX collapsed in November 2022. Two years later, the legal aftermath continues. Bankman-Fried sits in prison. Creditors wait for repayment. The crypto industry moved on. But the courts grind slowly. Appeals take years. This retrial motion adds another procedural layer.

For now, Bankman-Fried’s main hope rests with the Second Circuit. The retrial motion looks like a long shot. Prosecutors made that clear. Judge Kaplan will likely agree. Next step: wait for the ruling.