Bankman-Fried Opposes Public Disclosure of Bail Guarantors

Chris Dolmetsch, Bloomberg News

Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, departs from court in New York, US, on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. Bankman-Fried was released on a $250 million bail package after making his first US court appearance to face fraud charges over the collapse of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange he co-founded. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Sam Bankman-Fried is challenging a federal judge’s order making public the identities of two people who helped secure his $250 million bail package.

The FTX co-founder on Wednesday challenged the decision at the federal appeals court in New York. The trial judge, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, last month granted media applications to unseal the names of the two people, though he gave Bankman-Fried until Feb. 7 to appeal.

Bankman-Fried’s bail package was backed by two unidentified people who signed on as sureties for separate bonds of $500,000 and $200,000. Under the terms of his bail, the two were to be of “considerable means,” and one of them couldn’t be a relative.

Multiple media organizations, including Bloomberg, had asked Kaplan to order the disclosure of the two guarantors’ identities. Bankman-Fried’s attorneys had argued that revealing them would subject the two people to media scrutiny and potential harassment.

The judge found the privacy interests of the guarantors were limited, noting they entered voluntarily into a “highly publicized criminal proceeding” by signing the bonds.

Bankman-Fried’s parents also acted as guarantors, putting up their home in Palo Alto, California, as security.

The case is US v. Bankman-Fried, 22-cr-673, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan)

(Updates with background.)