I gotta say, this feels like a bit of information the public might have a right to know.
From Bloomberg:
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried asked a judge to keep confidential the identities of two people who will help secure his bail to protect them from public scrutiny and potential harassment.
Lawyers for Bankman-Fried on Tuesday filed a letter seeking redactions of the names of the two people who intend to sign on as sureties to his $250 million bail package, saying there is no need for public disclosure.
Bankman-Fried has been accused of some pretty staggering financial crimes. It stands to reason that we should be at least a little bit aware of who's putting up these staggering sums of money to keep him out of lockup, right?
The lawyers see it differently:
"If the two remaining sureties are publicly identified, they will likely be subjected to probing media scrutiny, and potentially targeted for harassment, despite having no substantive connection to the case," Bankman-Fried's lawyers wrote. "Consequently, the privacy and safety of the sureties are ‘countervailing factors' that significantly outweigh the presumption of public access to the very limited information at issue."
Not sure I'd call that "very limited information."
It's worth pointing out that the presence of the two guarantors on the bond sheet is already in and of itself a notable requirement:
In addition to Bankman-Fried and his parents, the judge asked that the bond be signed by two other people of "considerable means," one of whom can't be a relative.
