Judge blocks from revealing who helped bail for FTX founder Bankman-Fried

NEW YORK - A U.S. judge said the names of two people who helped guarantee bail for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried should be made public, but put his ruling on hold pending an expected appeal.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ruled in favor of several media outlets, including Reuters, that sought the names.

The judge said that while the public had a weak right to know who Bankman-Fried's guarantors were, it outweighed Bankman-Fried's arguments for confidentiality, including that the safety of the guarantors could be imperiled.

Kaplan said the names will remain under seal until at least Feb. 7, because the question presented here is novel and an appeal is likely. A spokesman for Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell, who represent Bankman-Fried, didn't want to say anything.

Bankman-Fried, 30, was confined to his parents' home in California, after pleading not guilty to fraud for looting billions of FTX customer dollars.

He and his parents, both professors at Stanford Law School, had signed a $250 million bond for his son, with two other guarantors required to sign $500,000 and $200,000 bonds.

Bankman-Fried's lawyers said the parents had been harassed and received physical threats since FTX's November collapse and bankruptcy, and there was serious cause for concern that additional guarantors might suffer similar treatment.

Kaplan disagreed, noting that long before bail was posted, the parents had faced intense public scrutiny over their relationship with their son, who was once worth an estimated $26 billion.

The amounts of the individual bonds - $500,000 and $200,000 -- do not suggest that the non-parental sureties are persons of great wealth or likely to attract attention of the types and volumes of those defendants' parents appear to have been subjected to, Kaplan wrote.

Media outlets distinguished the case from another judge's decision not to reveal who guaranteed a bond for Jeffrey Epstein's longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.

They said there was less stigma from being associated with Bankman-Fried than from being associated with the late sex offender. Maxwell was later convicted.