- Eight significant media organizations demand SBF bail sureties identities.
- The U.S. attorney claimed public interest cannot be overstated.
United States District Court of the Southern District of New York judge requested the identities of the two people who guaranteed the $250 million bail bond for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried ‘SBF.’ According to U.S. attorney Lewis Kaplan’s Jan 12 letter, prominent media organizations such as Bloomberg, the Financial Times, CNBC, Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, and Reuters have demanded that the SBF bail sureties be “publicly disclosed.”
The ex-billionaire Bankman-Fried committed one of the largest financial frauds recorded in the history of the cryptocurrency arena. He used multi-billion dollars from investors’ funds to buy personal properties and supported his trading company “Alemeda Research”. Also, financed significant political donations.
Following the accusations that have shaken the crypto markets, SBF was arrested on December 12 at his Bahamas island resort and transformed over to US authorities on December 21. In the wake of these charges, Sam Bankman-fried was freed on a $250 million bond on Dec 22, 2022. And he had to have two nonparent sureties sign bonds by January 5, 2023.
Demands for SBF Bail Guarantee
On January 11, Bankruptcy judge John Dorsey ordered to keep creditor information temporarily secret. Meanwhile, on Thursday, eight significant media organizations petitioned the judge presiding over Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal case to disclose the identities of the two people who assisted in securing the $250 million bond for the founder of the FTX exchange.
According to the leading publication site report, the media outlets attorney claimed that the public’s right to know Bankman-Fried’s guarantors. That outweighs their privacy and safety rights, adding that the public interest “cannot be overstated.”
Also, Lewis Kaplan’s stated in the letter that;
While the privacy interests of innocent third parties are entitled to significant weight, judicial documents entitled to a strong presumption of public access must remain public ‘absent the most compelling reasons.
Further, FTX has retrieved about $5 billion in cash and cryptocurrencies, as per the reports from legal counsel. These assets may be recovered from the company’s initial bankruptcy filing in November of last year.
