Who paid 250 million bail for Sam Bankman-Fried
2023.01.13 06:10
Who paid 250 million bail for Sam Bankman-Fried
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – The two people who guaranteed the $250 million bond of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried have been demanded by eight major media companies, including Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and Reuters.
On behalf of the media giants, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP attorneys wrote a letter to New York District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan on January 12 arguing that “the public’s right to know Bankman-Fried’s guarantors outweighed their privacy and safety rights.”
“The public […] has an interest in knowing who it is that provided Mr. Bankman-Fried with financial backing.”
They argued that this was especially true “[especially] given Mr. Bankman-Fried’s close relationships with leaders of the financial industry, investors, prominent Silicon Valley billionaires, and elected representatives.”
The Associated Press, CNBC, Dow Jones, Insider, and Washington Post are the other media outlets attempting to persuade the judge to reveal the names of Bankman-Fried’s guarantors.
Additionally, the attorneys argued that Bankman-Fried’s close ties to “some of the most wealthy, powerful, and politically connected individuals” worldwide made it possible for such a non-disclosure to damage “public confidence in our government institutions and political leaders.”
The media attorneys also argued that although Ghislaine Maxwell, a confidante of Jeffrey Epstein, had her bond guarantors sealed in a 2020 case, Bankman-Fried’s alleged financial crimes are not nearly as serious as Maxwell’s:
“A public association with Mr. Bankman-Fried does not carry nearly the same stigma as with the Jeffrey Epstein child sex trafficking scandal, even though Mr. Bankman-Fried is accused of serious financial crimes.”
The court granted Bankman-Fried’s request to redact the names and identifying information of his two non-parental bail sureties on January 3, prompting the letter.
Since FTX’s catastrophic collapse in early November, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, the parents and co-signers of Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bond, have received ongoing physical threats, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers have previously argued that Bankman-Fried’s sureties should be kept under wraps.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argued that if the names of the guarantors were revealed, there would be “serious cause for concern” regarding their safety and well-being.
The mainstream media have also requested that the names of Bankman-Fried’s guarantors be made public.
Additionally, a number of media outlets urged Delaware-based Judge John Dorsey, who is in charge of FTX’s bankruptcy case, to reveal the identities of up to nine million customers who were involved in the proceedings.
However, on January 11, bankruptcy judge John Dorsey decided to keep creditor information private for now.
13 January, 3:45 a.m. UTC: incorporated additional quotations from the letter that Davis Wright Tremaine LLP wrote to Judge Lewis Kaplan.
