People who posted Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail should be named, according to US judges’ rules

By Jonathan Stamp

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A US judge said Monday the names of two people who helped guarantee bail for accused cryptocurrency exchange FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried should be released, but his Decision has been stayed pending an expected appeal.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ruled in favor of several media outlets, including Reuters, who searched for the names.

The judge said that while the public has only a “weak” right to know who Bankman-Fried’s guarantors are, Bankman-Fried’s arguments for confidentiality, including that the security of the guarantors could be compromised, prevail.

Kaplan also said the names will remain under wraps until at least February 7 because “the question asked here is novel and an appeal is likely.”

A spokesman for Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell, who represent Bankman-Fried, declined to comment.

Bankman-Fried, 30, was jailed at his parents’ home in California after pleading not guilty to fraud for allegedly looting billions of FTX customer dollars.

His parents, both professors at Stanford Law School, had co-signed a $250 million bond for their son, with two other guarantors obligated to underwrite $500,000 and $200,000 bonds.

Lawyers for Bankman-Fried said the parents had been harassed and physically threatened since FTX’s collapse and bankruptcy in November, and that there were “serious concerns” that the additional guarantors could suffer similar treatment.

Kaplan disagreed, noting that long before bail was posted, the parents faced “intense public scrutiny” over their relationship with their son, who was once worth an estimated $26 billion.

“The amounts of the individual bonds — $500,000 and $200,000 — do not suggest that the non-parental guarantors are individuals of great wealth or are likely to attract attention based on the nature and extent of what the defendant’s parents were exposed to.” , Kaplan wrote.

The media distinguished the case from another judge’s decision not to reveal who guaranteed a bond for Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

They said there was less “stigma” to be associated with Bankman-Fried than with the late sex offender. Maxwell was later convicted.

Other media outlets that wanted to identify Bankman-Fried’s guarantors included the Associated Press, Bloomberg, CNBC, CoinDesk, Dow Jones, the Financial Times, Insider, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)