-he- might not have $250 million, but it’s backed by equity in his parents’ home (and they’re Stanford profs/ex-profs). and two others, evidently.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was released on $250 million bond while awaiting trial for fraud and other criminal charges**,** a New York federal judge ruled Thursday.
Bankman-Fried stepped out of U.S. District Court in Manhattan, flanked by his parents, his legal team, and court security at 2:19 local time.
The terms of his personal recognizance bond were agreed to by prosecutors and Bankman-Fried’s lawyers. The 30-year-old will face his next hearing, presided over by Judge Ronnie Abrams, in New York City on Jan. 3., where he’ll enter his plea and be arraigned.
A recognizance bond is a written commitment from the accused to appear in court when ordered. In return, Bankman-Fried’s camp would not be required to meet the full collateral requirements on the bail.
The bond was secured by equity in his family home, and by the signatures of his parents and two other individuals with “considerable” assets.
Would be interesting to know who the two others were.
Equity in family home in Palo Alto, probably <$5M. That’s a long way from $250M. Go ahead and double the estimate to $10M, it’s still a long way from $250M. Especially when you consider the amount of stolen and missing assets. SBF bought known and identified properties in the Bahamas worth far more than that piddly amount. There’s no telling how much property he purchased in other locations that haven’t, and won’t be identified. Add to that the amount of crypto assets hidden away in unknown accounts, also likely far greater than the $5M. Any good crook also has a pile of cash.
I am curious who the other 2 individuals with “considererable” assets are. It doesn’t seem like a wise investment to pledge those assets as bail for SBF.
The DOJ had this thing pegged. I like how they already had the Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison turned rat but did not release that info till after SBF was extradited.
Reading this morning they had an account called the “Korean” account that they used to hid the billions in losses.
One of my friends lived in the same house at college as Sam Bankman-Fried. It feels even more like that to him.
He says he’s gotten a lot of calls from a NYT reporter, and hasn’t answered the phone. His not-frat got a request for comments about “what was he like in college”, from the same reporter, which is how he knows her phone number. The gossip at the not-frat is that any publicity they might get will be bad, and they’d just as soon not talk to the press.
Someone from his high school did talk to the press. My son dug up an article that said his senior prank in high school was to print a lot of fake currency with his face on it, called bankmans.
Not sure about the accuracy of the link below. Even if true, I do not know that it necessarily violates the terms of SBF’s release agreement. It still would have an awful stench to it. Shouldn’t all of this guys assets be temporarily frozen and supervised by the court rather than just an order not to spend more than $1k without court approval?
One of the main use cases of crypto is illicit spending/activity, not an expert, but I think things like this are just an unavoidable element of crypto/de-centralized finance.
The more I read about crypto the closer I get to Charlie Munger’s stance, that it’s solely used by criminals and the rest are in it for a fraud/get rich quick scheme
Absolutely. The feds will never track down the money this guy stole from investors. Crypto is so easy to hide. What the government could do to end this is do everything in their power to devalue crypto and make whatever he has hidden as worthless as possible.
Nice to see that some of the celebrities promoting FTX also got burned financially. I have no sympathy for folks who get burned after getting paid millions for endorsing things they know zero about. Article below is gifted.
In reality, Ms. Swift’s side signed the sponsorship agreement with FTX after more than six months of discussions, three people with knowledge of the deal said, and it was Mr. Bankman-Fried who pulled out. The last-minute reversal left Ms. Swift’s team frustrated and disappointed, two of the people said.
TS: “Oh, and I want to be paid in cash.”
B-F: “Ooh, sorry, we don’t have any of that here.”
SBF is having his bail revoked and is going to jail. Allegedly he’s been tampering with/intimidating witnesses. He tried the “free speech” argument that he is free to tamper with witnesses and lost.
Can’t imagine what someplace like Rikers will be like for a guy like that.
