Stanford Faculty Revealed as Backers of SBF’s Bail

Two Stanford faculty members were revealed as the cosigners for $700,000 worth of Sam Bankman-Fried's $250 million bail bond.

The founder of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX—known internationally as SBF—faces a slew of fraud charges filed by multiple federal entities.

A New York federal judge ruled the names of the cosigners to his bail should be revealed after news organizations including CoinDesk argued the names were in the public interest. An appeal against the decision was not filed by SBF's legal team, the judge said Wednesday in court filings.

Both professors named as SBF's bail cosigners are listed as "emeritus," meaning they are retired but are allowed to retain their titles and sometimes still work on campus.

The cosigners were revealed to be Stanford Senior Research Scientist Andreas Paepcke and former Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer, who put up $200,000 and $500,000, respectively. Paepcke was contacted for comment.

Kramer told CNBC's Washington correspondent Eamon Javers he had helped out the Bankman-Fried family because they had been close friends since the '90s and aided the Kramer family during a recent cancer battle.

SBF's parents are Stanford professors, too—his father is Joseph Bankman, a Stanford Law School professor who canceled classes in December 2022 to focus his efforts on helping his son.

And SBF's mother is Barbara Fried, also a Stanford Law School professor, who did not post any class listings for 2023, either.