Sam Bankman Freed, the former FTX founder currently serving a 25-year federal prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California, withdrew his Rule 33 motion for a new trial in a letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York, stating that he did not expect to receive a fair trial from the presiding judge.
The withdrawal, filed without prejudice, preserves Bankman-Fried’s right to refil after the conclusion of its direct appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the resolution of any pending judicial reappointment request.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried withdraws request for retrial and searches for a new judge.
Despite this, his broader legal challenges remain as he continues to pursue an appeal against his conviction and sentence.
According to filings filed with the US District Court for the Southern District… pic.twitter.com/3qR3dOosFt
– Thecryptobasic (@thecryptobasic) April 23, 2026
We believe that this is a calculated procedural retreat and not any substantive concession on the underlying merits.
By backing away from the Rule 33 proposal now, Bankman-Fried’s legal strategy appears designed to avoid an adverse ruling from a judge whose team has formally accused him of apparent bias — a ruling that could carry weight as a precedent against future suits, while consolidating appellate resources around Second Circuit review, where the procedural setting is materially more favorable.
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Sam Bankman, Rule 33, Withdrawal and the Judicial Response Mechanism: How the Procedural Structure Works
The mechanism works as follows: A Rule 33 motion, filed under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, allows a convicted defendant to seek a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence or in the interests of justice. Bankman-Fried’s request was originally filed in March 2026 by his mother, Barbara Freed, the attorney representing him while he was detained in a facility in Brooklyn before his transfer to Lompoc.
Bankman-Fried later claimed in an April 2026 filing that he independently designed, researched and drafted multiple versions of the proposal himself, a characterization that prosecutors formally disputed.
Judge Kaplan had ordered Bankman-Fried to clarify the issue of authorship, specifically, whether the recording was truly self-authored, given that Bankman-Fried was technically proceeding, that is, without hiring counsel, before the court could consider the merits of the request.
Bankman-Fried stated in his withdrawal letter that responding to Judge Kaplan’s inquiries about authorship had consumed time and resources that could have been directed toward rebutting the government’s substantive opposition to the new trial motion, a procedural impasse that he described as effectively preventing meaningful preparation.
Separately, Bankman-Fried’s legal team filed a formal motion for judicial recusal in February 2026, alleging that Judge Kaplan demonstrated extreme bias throughout the trial proceedings. The motion for recusal remains pending before the Second Circuit along with the direct appeal. A successful refusal would, in principle, reset the procedural landscape for any future Article 33 litigation by referring the matter to a new district court judge – a circumstance that is likely to underlie the strategic rationale for the current withdrawal.
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Daniel Francis is a technical writer and Web3 educator specializing in macroeconomics and DeFi mechanics. A crypto native since 2017, Daniel brings his background in cross-chain analytics to author evidence-based reports and detailed guides. It is certified by the Blockchain Council and is dedicated to providing “information gain” that cuts through the market noise to find blockchain’s real-world utility.
