On Wednesday, the judge overseeing the criminal trial for Sam Bankman-Fried ordered the unsealing of the names of cosigners for the $250 million bond of the disgraced FTX founder.
In short fashion, the names of the two sureties were revealed in court filings: Larry Kramer, dean emeritus of Stanford Law School, and Andreas Paepcke, a senior research scientist at Stanford University.
After the U.S. Department of Justice charged Bankman-Fried with eight counts related to the collapse of FTX, including wire fraud and campaign finance regulation violations, in December, the matter of the founder’s bail has been a point of tension between his defense attorneys and media organizations.
Despite the massive size of Bankman-Fried’s $250 million bond, he did not have to front the money. Instead, his parents put up their Palo Alto home as collateral. He also had to find two non–family members to sign on as guarantors.
Two people agreed to sign $500,000 and $200,000 bonds, although Bankman-Fried’s lawyers sought to redact their names and identifying information, citing privacy concerns and threats faced by Bankman-Fried’s family.
Media organizations disagreed, with prominent outlets including Bloomberg and Reuters filing petitions to oppose the redaction in January. Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing the trial, ultimately sided with the media organizations, deciding that the public’s right to know outweighed the arguments for confidentiality.
After allowing an appeal from Bankman-Fried’s lawyers, Kaplan ordered the names to be unsealed on Wednesday. In a court filing, he said that defense lawyers had filed a notice of appeal but had not submitted an application for a further stay, which is why he instructed the court clerk to file the unrestricted public orders.
The first, Larry Kramer, signed the larger bond of $500,000. Kramer was the dean of Stanford Law School from 2004 to 2012, where both of Bankman-Fried’s parents were professors. In December, Kramer was quoted in a New York Times piece focusing on the role that Bankman-Fried’s parents played in FTX’s collapse.
“I had a friend who said, ‘You don’t want to be seen with them,’” Kramer told the Times. “I don’t see how this doesn’t bankrupt them.”
Paepcke signed the $200,000 bond. Like Kramer, Paepcke is also associated with Stanford University, where an online biography describes him as a senior research scientist focused on computer science. His connection with the Bankman-Fried family is not immediately apparent, although he appears to have attended Harvard University at the same time as Bankman-Fried’s mother, Barbara Fried.
Kramer shared a statement with The Block, writing that he and his wife have been close friends with Bankman-Fried’s parents since the mid-1990s.
“My actions are in my personal capacity, and I have no business dealings or interest in this matter other than to help our loyal and steadfast friends,” he said.
A listed phone number for Paepcke went to voicemail. He didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment from Coins2Day.
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