Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, ENFORCEMENT—S.D.N.Y.: Judge denies SBF’s motion for a new trial, (Apr 29, 2026)

By Anne Sherry, J.D.

The judge would be barred from granting the motion, but not from denying it.

Sam Bankman-Fried, who is appealing his conviction for fraud and conspiracy to the Second Circuit, lost a concurrent bid for a new trial in the district court. None of three “new” witnesses were actually newly discovered, and there was no reliable evidence of what they would say if called on. The court described Bankman-Fried’s motion as part of a larger PR plan that began before he was indicted (U.S. v. Bankman-Fried, No. 22-cr-00673 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 28, 2026)).

The court effusively praised the government’s work, calling its 50-page brief in opposition “so thorough, so well documented, and so well taken, it would suffice to express the Court’s substantial agreement with the government’s entire response and simply deny the motion.” However, the court did more than that, fleshing out its memorandum to address several procedural and substantive matters.

Merits issues. Bankman-Fried’s so-called newly discovered witnesses were not that—the defendant knew all three of them and could have sought out their testimony, but failed to do so. Here, the court called Bankman-Fried’s claim that the witnesses had been threatened by the government “wildly conspiratorial and entirely contradicted by the record.” Even if the individuals had testified, there was no reliable evidence of what they would have said, given scant statements from one and public recantations by another that, if believed, would put the lie to his sworn statements during his allocution.

The court posited that the motion is just part of a plan to rehabilitate Bankman-Fried’s reputation, citing Google Docs outlines of a plan to be interviewed by Michael Lewis and Tucker Carlson, engage in “radical honesty on Twitter,” and advertise that the FTX bankruptcy team was destroying value. Even on house arrest and under incarceration, Bankman-Fried “followed his plan to a remarkable degree” to promote his narrative. But the facts he presented on that PR tour are the same ones that the court excluded at trial and Bankman-Fried is arguing on appeal. They are hardly never-before-seen, the court reasoned, let alone newly discovered.

Procedural issues. The court noted at the outset that Bankman-Fried’s appeal did not fully deprive the district court of jurisdiction to act on his motion for a new trial: the court would be barred under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33(b)(1) from granting the motion but would not be prohibited from denying the motion.

On appeal, Bankman-Fried argues that the Second Circuit should assign the case to a different district judge if it is remanded, and his new trial motion in the district court likewise asked the judge to recuse himself. The court adopted all of the points the government made in both courts and added its own: that the recusal motion is presumptively untimely, and that granting it would waste judicial recourses by requiring another judge to become familiar with an extensive and complicated record.

The court also spoke on Bankman-Fried’s attempt to withdraw his motion without prejudice, which it characterized as his wanting “to retain the right to refile the motion at some later time of his choosing, perhaps after those familiar with the extensive and complex trial record no longer are available.” No rule of procedure addresses the issue of whether a movant may withdraw a pending motion, and a court has the discretion to deny leave to withdraw a fully briefed motion in the same way it may deny other motions to withdraw or amend.

Bankman-Fried put the government and the court through a substantial burden of time and effort, and his claimed reasoning for wanting to withdraw the motion for a new trial could not be reconciled with his decision to file that motion in the first place. In the interest of judicial economy and in the presence of undue delay and bad faith on the part of the movant, it was appropriate to deny the motion.

The case is No. 22-cr-00673.

Judge: Kaplan, L.

Attorneys: Danielle Renee Sassoon, U.S. Attorney's Office, for the U.S. Mark Stewart Cohen (Cohen & Gresser, LLP) for Samuel Bankman-Fried.

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