The cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried can post a $250-million bond and live in his parents’ home in California while he awaits trial on charges that he swindled investors and looted customer deposits on his FTX trading platform, a judge said Thursday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos said in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that Bankman-Fried, 30, “perpetrated a fraud of epic proportions.” Roos proposed strict bail terms, including a $250 million bond — which he said is believed to be the largest federal pretrial bond ever — and house arrest at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California.
An important reason for allowing bail was that Bankman-Fried agreed to waive extradition, Roos said. Bankman-Fried was expected to be freed Thursday.
Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein agreed to the bond and also approved the house arrest proposal, though he required that an electronic monitoring bracelet be affixed to Bankman-Fried before he left the courthouse.