After so much rigmarole on the identity of Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) $250 million bail bond co-signers, the two individuals have finally been revealed.
Following Judge Lewis Kaplan’s ruling in January, the two co-signers of the bail bond have been revealed to be employees of the great Stanford University. The first is the former Dean of Stanford Law School, Larry Kramer, and Stanford Research Scientist, Andreas Paepcke.
It has been discovered that Paepcke funded $200,000 of the bail bond while Kramer who served as the dean of Stanford Law School for almost nine years was responsible for another $500,000 of SBF’s bail bond. Kramer is currently the president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Apart from the connection to Stanford University, no other mutual relationship has been established between Kramer and Paepcke.
However, there are speculations that they may have further connections to SBF’s parents; Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried who also work at the Stanford Law School. Noteworthy, Joseph and Barbara are responsible for the remaining part of the bail bond.
A win for the Public
After Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest in November and later extradition to the United States where he was granted the $250 million bail bond, the crypto juggernaut has been trying to hide the names of these guarantors.
The recent ruling of the United States District Judge Lewis Kaplan mandated that details of the two guarantors who signed the $250 million bail bond can best be tagged a win for the public.
Top cryptocurrency and blockchain media sites including Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and Reuters submitted a motion to uncover the true identity of these guarantors “for the limited purpose of asserting the public’s claimed right of access.”
Attorneys from Davis Wright Tremaine LLP which represents the media platforms explained that “the public’s right to know Bankman-Fried’s guarantors outweighed their privacy and safety rights.
As suspected by Judge Kaplan, attorneys representing the young billionaire filed a notice of appeal almost a week later stating that the identities of the guarantors remain private until around February 14th. For now, Bankman-Fried is staying with his parents at their Palo Alto home in California. Unlike Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang who pleaded guilty to the charges levied against them, Sam Bankman-Fried pled not guilty.
