SBF Appeals from Prison, 35-Page Document Accuses Judicial Misconduct

On February 10, according to a report by Inner City Press, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of FTX currently serving his sentence at Terminal Island prison in California, is actively seeking to overturn his conviction. A pro se (self-represented) motion for a new trial, submitted on his behalf by his mother, Stanford Law School professor Barbara H. Fried, has been formally filed with the court. This 35-page document cites Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33 and newly discovered evidence, strongly demanding the reversal of his 2023 fraud conviction and the 25-year prison sentence imposed in 2024.

The motion’s key arguments include: critical witnesses (such as former Alameda Research co-CEO Ryan Salame and former FTX.US executive Daniel Chapsky) did not testify, leading to serious flaws in the trial; prosecutors are suspected of withholding evidence; the entire process was influenced by political factors, with SBF implicitly suggesting he is a victim of a “targeted crackdown” by the Biden administration.

The evidence and arguments submitted by SBF this time are not aimed at directly proving his “innocence,” but rather adopt a legal strategy questioning procedural loopholes in the judicial trial.

Core Allegation One: “Customized” Witnesses and Judicial Kidnapping

The motion alleges that prosecutors turned the inner circle through threats and inducements, and “silenced” witnesses favorable to SBF.

For example, the absence of former Alameda Research co-CEO Ryan Salame. The motion cites Salame’s public statements after August 2024 (including an interview with Tucker Carlson) as newly discovered evidence, revealing that prosecutors threatened to prosecute Salame’s partner, Michelle Bond, to prevent Salame from testifying to SBF’s innocence.

Regarding former engineering head Nishad Singh, who testified against SBF, the motion discloses that during pre-trial interviews, when Singh’s initial statements did not meet prosecutors’ expectations, a prosecutor angrily “slammed the table,” reprimanding Singh’s memory as “unreliable.”

SBF believes that this high-pressure intimidation led Singh to subsequently change his testimony under duress. The motion formally requests the court to order prosecutors to hand over the relevant interview notes to prove they concealed this coercive process.

Core Allegation Two: The Disappearing “Liabilities” and the [email protected] Mystery

SBF submitted a sworn declaration from former FTX Head of Data Science, Daniel Chapsky, refuting the misappropriation allegations from a data perspective.

The motion points out that prosecutors presented the massive negative balance in the [email protected] account as ironclad evidence of SBF misusing customer funds. However, Chapsky’s declaration counters that the prosecution’s interpretation is a “fundamental misrepresentation.”

He states that the negative balance in that account corresponded to cash and assets held by Alameda off-chain. Prosecutors only showed the jury the negative “debit” side while deliberately omitting the corresponding “credit” assets, thereby fabricating a multi-billion dollar shortfall out of thin air.

Chapsky’s data analysis further shows that if correctly accounted for during most of 2022, Alameda’s accounts on FTX actually maintained a positive balance of approximately $2 billion. Prosecutors and expert witness Peter Easton intentionally displayed only certain specific negative-balance sub-accounts, misleading the jury.

Core Allegation Three: Bankruptcy Law Firm S&C’s “Asset Erasure Tactic”

SBF also points the finger at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell (S&C), responsible for FTX’s bankruptcy restructuring. He accuses S&C of artificially creating “insolvency” to align with the prosecution’s conviction narrative and to earn exorbitant legal fees.

The motion notes that FTX held a venture portfolio valued at up to $8.4 billion at the time of bankruptcy (including investments in Claude AI developer Anthropic). However, in the early stages of bankruptcy, S&C and prosecutors, to solidify the alleged funding gap, artificially recorded these less liquid but highly valuable assets at zero or extremely low values.

SBF emphasizes that the bankruptcy team’s eventual confirmation that customers will receive 119% to 143% cash recovery itself proves his assertion during the trial that “FTX was solvent, the money wasn’t lost” was true.

Core Allegation Four: Political Targeting and Judicial Bias

Finally, SBF plays the political and procedural cards. He implies he is a victim of a “political war” by the Biden administration. As a former major Democratic donor, he was quickly cut off and harshly sentenced after the collapse to quell public anger.

Furthermore, given that presiding Judge Lewis A. Kaplan repeatedly rejected defense evidence regarding “FTX’s solvency” during the previous trial, SBF’s motion not only requests a new trial but also explicitly demands Judge Kaplan’s recusal, citing the judge’s demonstrated extreme bias, rendering him incapable of adjudicating the case fairly.

Is This Breakout Attempt Doomed to Be a Last Stand?

A Rule 33 motion requires evidence to be “newly discovered” after the trial, which the defense could not have obtained through “due diligence” during the trial. The judge is likely to rule that Salame and Chapsky were known potential witnesses during the trial, and the defense’s failure to call them was a strategic choice or an objective difficulty, not “new evidence.”

Moreover, FTX’s high recovery rate (even exceeding 100%) does not disprove that SBF misappropriated customer funds at the time. The crime is established upon the unauthorized use of customer funds (regardless of intent). Subsequent asset appreciation is generally considered irrelevant for legal conviction, potentially affecting only sentencing.

Regarding allegations of coercion, unless there is concrete audio or written evidence proving direct coercion by prosecutors (such as specific audio of the “table slamming”), judges typically tend to credit the prosecution’s explanations of procedural compliance.

Furthermore, successfully demanding a recusal of a senior federal judge for “bias” is extremely rare in judicial practice, unless there is overwhelming evidence of a clear conflict of interest. Otherwise, such accusations might further antagonize the judicial system and be viewed as contempt of court.

* The original motion document can be viewed by clickinghere.

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