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 only a
"weak" right to know who Bankman-Fried's guarantors were, it
outweighed Bankman-Fried's arguments for confidentiality, including that the
guarantors' safety could be imperiled.
Kaplan also said the names will remain under seal until at
least February 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, declined to comment.
Bankman-Fried, 30, has been confined at his parents' home in
California, after pleading not guilty to fraud for allegedly looting billions
of dollars of FTX customers.
His parents, both professors at Stanford Law School, had
co-signed a $250 million bond for their 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" the 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 volume of that to which
defendant's parents appear to have been subjected," 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.
Other media seeking to identify Bankman-Fried's guarantors
included the Associated Press, Bloomberg, CNBC, CoinDesk, Dow Jones, the
Financial Times, Insider, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
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