SBF Amnesty Application, Appeal, and Retrial Proceed Concurrently as Legal Team Banks on Multiple Exit Strategies

BlockBeats News, June 8th - While officially submitting a pardon application to US President Trump (application type: post-sentence pardon), FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is concurrently advancing multiple legal processes in an attempt to seek a retrial through both administrative and legal channels.

Currently, the SBF team has opened up three fronts simultaneously. In addition to the latest presidential pardon application, the appeal filed against the conviction outcome to the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals (Case No. 24-961) completed oral arguments in November 2025, followed by SBF withdrawing the retrial application in April 2026, citing an inability to receive a fair trial under the original judge. However, he stated that he may refile the motion once the Second Circuit Court rules on the direct appeal.

Meanwhile, in February 2026, SBF's mother, Barbara Fried, also submitted a motion for retrial to the Southern District of New York federal court under Federal Criminal Procedure Rule 33, alleging procedural violations during the case trial and requesting a new trial.

Analysts pointed out that the simultaneous pursuit of a pardon application, federal appeal, and retrial motion reflects that SBF's legal team is not pinning its hopes on a single channel but is attempting to progress through both executive power and judicial proceedings simultaneously to seek more possibilities to overturn his 25-year sentence. Currently, final rulings have not been made on these proceedings.