Bankman-Fried's Bond Co-Signers Revealed

Sam Bankman-Fried's $250 million bail deal was secured with help from scholars at Stanford, where his parents work as law professors. Court documents released Wednesday reveal Larry Kramer, dean emeritus at Stanford Law School, and Stanford computer scientist Andreas Paepcke joined Bankman-Fried's parents as guarantors of one of the largest ever pretrial bonds, per CNN. Kramer signed a bond worth $500,000, while Paepcke signed one worth $200,000. In a statement, Kramer says he has "no business dealings or interest in this matter" and that his act was simply a favor for longtime friends Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, who supported Kramer's family as they recently "faced a harrowing battle with cancer."

As the FTX founder awaits trial on charges of defrauding investors, his defense lawyers sought to keep the names of the guarantors under wraps on the basis of privacy and safety concerns, claiming Bankman-Fried's parents had faced physical threats and harassment. But in a Jan. 30 ruling, a Manhattan federal judge sided with media companies who argued the names should be released due to public interest. "The amounts of the individual bonds ... do not suggest that the non-parental sureties are persons of great wealth or likely to attract attention of the types and volumes of that to which the defendant's parents appear to have been subjected," wrote US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, per Fox Business.

The names were finally released Wednesday after an appeals court failed to rule on the defense motion, per CNN. Paepcke didn't respond to requests for comment, per CNN and CNBC. The guarantors will only have to pay up if Bankman-Fried fails to appear in court. He is to stay with his parents in Palo Alto, California. However, he was ordered to court Thursday on accusations that he used a virtual private network, or VPN, twice within the past month, including to watch the Super Bowl, WLS reports. Prosecutors say this raises "several potential concerns," as "a VPN is a mechanism of encryption, hiding online activities from third parties, including the government." (More Sam Bankman-Fried stories.)