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A federal magistrate on Thursday ordered disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried released on a $250 million personal recognizance bond signed by his parents and secured by their Palo Alto, California, home. A prosecutor called it the largest pretrial bond ever.
Bankman-Fried, who did not enter a plea during the brief hearing, appeared in a dark suit and tie with his distinctive mop of curly hair. Shackles were not visible around his ankles but echoed through the courtroom as he entered. Both of his parents, former Stanford Law professors, appeared in the gallery.
The 30-year-old crypto executive is charged with defrauding customers and investors in the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. He made his initial appearance in a New York federal court hours after he arrived in the United States from the Bahamas, where he was arrested last week.
“Mr. Bankman-Fried perpetrated a fraud of epic proportions,” assistant United States Attorney Nicholas Roos said. “The evidence is very strong.”
In addition to the bond, Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein ordered Bankman-Fried’s passport taken and his travel restricted. He will be under strict pretrial supervision, required to live with his parents at their house. He can go to the gym but otherwise his movements are limited and monitored by an ankle bracelet fitted before leaving court.
A U.S. government plane flew Bankman-Fried, 30, to New York, where federal prosecutors had charged him in an eight-count indictment for fraud, conspiracy and campaign finance violations linked to tens of millions of dollars in political donations.
Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York accused the once-heralded advocate for transparency in crypto with being a fraud from the moment he founded FTX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.
