Key Points:
- Bankman-Fried’s attorneys requested that the court suppress the names and identifying details of the two co-signers who contributed to the former FTX CEO’s $250 million bail, in addition to his parents.
- According to the attorneys, Bankman-Fried’s parents have received a constant stream of threatening letters, including some wishing for them to be physically harmed.
- As a result, there is a substantial reason to worry that the two additional sureties will experience similar invasions of their privacy, threats, and harassment if their names appear on their bonds.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, requested that the judge maintain the identities of the two people who will assist in securing his bail a secret in order to shield them from prying eyes and possible persecution.
Bankman-Fried’s attorneys requested that the court suppress the names and identifying details of the two co-signers who contributed to the former FTX CEO’s $250 million bail, in addition to his parents.
The attorneys asked that their clients’ identities be withheld due to privacy and safety concerns in the court documents submitted on Tuesday. According to the document, the U.S. government informed the lawyers that it had no opinion regarding the request.
Attorneys Mark S. Cohen and Christian R. Everdell of Cohen & Gresser LLP wrote to presiding judge Lewis R. Kaplan stating that their request is justified because all information relevant to the court’s oversight of the bail proceedings will be made public, including the terms of bail, and that they are only seeking to prevent the public disclosure of identities.
After the bonds were signed on January 5, Bankman-Fried’s legal team asked that the court order names and other identifying information of two bail sureties not be made public and redacted from them. If the people’s personal information became public, Mark Cohen of the legal firm Cohen & Gresser warned that they might experience harassment akin to that experienced by Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, the parents of the former FTX CEO.
According to the attorneys, Bankman-Fried’s parents have received a constant stream of threatening letters, including some wishing for them to be physically harmed. As a result, there is a substantial reason to worry that the two additional sureties will experience similar invasions of their privacy, threats, and harassment if their names appear on their bonds without being redacted or if their identities are somehow made public.
“If the two remaining sureties are publicly identified, they will likely be subjected to probing media scrutiny, and potentially targeted for harassment, despite having no substantive connection to the case. Consequently, the privacy and safety of the sureties are ‘countervailing factors’ that significantly outweigh the presumption of public access to the very limited information at issue,” Bankman-Fried’s lawyers wrote.
Bankman-Fried was charged with money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud by the Southern District of New York after the startling failure of his multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency business in November.
The former FTX CEO was detained in the Bahamas in December and then extradited to the US. He is apparently planning to enter a not-guilty plea for the criminal allegations, which include wire fraud, securities fraud, and breaking campaign funding regulations, on January 3, when he physically appears in court.
The California home of Bankman-Fried parents and two other sureties served as the bail for his release after his court appearance on December 22 in New York. In the days that followed his release, the methods used to acquire the bond for his bail were closely examined.
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