Sam Bankman-Fried Asks Judge to Redact Names of Bail Guarantors

Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t want the public to know who’s helping him stay free on bail.

Lawyers for the founder and former CEO of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX asked a judge Tuesday (Jan. 3) to redact the names of two people who are expected to become sureties of his $250 million bail, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

The two potential guarantors have not yet signed on to the deal but are expected to do so Thursday (Jan. 5), joining Bankman-Fried and his parents as sureties for the bail package, according to the report.

“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,” the lawyers wrote in a letter to the judge, per the report. “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.”

It’s not unusual for anonymity to be provided for those who help people get bail. This was done in the high-profile cases of Ghislaine Maxwell and Bernie Madoff, for example, and a bankruptcy court has already granted anonymity to FTX creditors, according to the report.

This news comes on the same day that it was reported that Bankman-Fried plans to plead not guilty to defrauding FTX investors during his court appearance.

He is to be arraigned Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan, charged with eight counts of fraud and conspiracy.

Bankman-Fried was released on $250 million bond Dec. 22 during his first court appearance in the United States after being extradited from the Bahamas.

Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein in New York City said at the time that he agreed to the deal because he believed Bankman-Fried wasn’t a flight risk, didn’t pose a risk to the community and would be easily recognized if he were to try to hide.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos said that he believed the $250 million bond was the largest ever, and that the government agreed to the bail package because Bankman-Fried had consented to his extradition from the Bahamas.

For all PYMNTS crypto coverage, subscribe to the daily Crypto Newsletter.