It was one of the mysteries of the FTX saga and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.
Who were the two people who alongside his parents signed the massive $250 million bond a court ordered to release the former crypto king pending his trial, which is scheduled for next October?
The question was a tough one for the media and the crypto industry to answer. Thats because few people wanted to have their names associated with the one who is accused of one of the biggest fiascos of the young financial services industry powered by blockchain technology.
The secret of the two signatories has just been lifted: They are Larry Kramer, former dean of Stanford Law School, and Andreas Paepcke, a Stanford computer scientist, according to court documents published on Feb. 15. The first is committed for $500,000 and the second for $200,000.
Bankman-Fried's parents were both law professors at Stanford University. They resigned after their son’s crypto firm collapsed.
Bankman-Fried Fought the Disclosure
The disclosure results from a decision announced last month by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is in charge of the FTX case. A media group had asked the judge to publish the names of the two individuals in the public interest. The judge approved the request despite protests from Bankman-Fried's attorneys.
The former trader was released on bond on Dec. 22 after being extradited from the Bahamas, where he lived and FTX was headquartered. His release had been secured after his parents signed a $250 million recognizance bond, pledging their California home as collateral.
He is under house arrest in his parents' home in California. He opposed, via his lawyers, the publication of the names of his two benefactors.
Bankman-Fried argued that if the identity of these individuals were known, it would pose a danger to them in view of the threats made against his parents.
"The Court should deny the motions and affirm its prior ruling that the names and addresses of the non-parent sureties be redacted on their appearance bonds," attorneys Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell urged on Jan. 19.
Their request, they explained, was due to a recent incident. Three men had tried to break into Bankman-Fried's parents' house. They had, according to the two lawyers, hit the barricade in front of this house with their car.
"The non-parental bail sureties have entered voluntarily into a highly publicized criminal proceeding by signing the individual bonds," Judge Kaplan rejected.
"Accordingly, they do not have the type of privacy interests in their names that the Court of Appeals found to warrant confidential treatment with respect to 'financial records of a wholly owned business, family affairs, illnesses, embarrassing conduct with no public ramifications, and similar matters.'"
As a result, he granted the news organizations' motion to unseal the names of the two individuals but stayed his disclosure order until Feb. 7 to give Bankman-Fried time to appeal. If he appealed by that date, the judge said at the time that he would extend the date to Feb. 14 to enable the losing side to ask the Court of Appeals for a further stay.
Since the names have been released, this means that the Bankman-Fried camp has lost its appeals.
