Judge allows FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to be released on $250M bond to parents' Palo Alto home

A New York judge has ruled Thursday that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried can post $250 million bond and live in his parents' home in California as he awaits trial on fraud charges.

Authorities arrested the disgraced crypto exchange founder in the Bahamas earlier in the month. He has since been hit with multiple charges from the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The charges Bankman-Fried faces in the U.S. include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to defraud the Federal Election Commission and commit campaign finance violations, the Justice Department says.

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 and house arrest at Bankman-Fried's parents' home in Palo Alto, California.

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An important reason for allowing bail was that Bankman-Fried agreed to waive extradition, Roos said.

Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein agreed to the bond and also approved the house arrest proposal. He also said Bankman-Fried would be required to get an electronic monitoring bracelet before leaving the Manhattan courthouse.

Bankman-Fried wore a suit and tie in court and sat between his attorneys. Two U.S. marshals sat behind him.

When the judge asked Bankman-Fried if he understood the conditions of release and if he did not obey that he would be arrested, he answered, "Yes, I do."

It was the only time he spoke in court.

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Bankman-Fried, arrested in the Bahamas last week, was flown to New York late Wednesday after deciding not to challenge his extradition.

While he was in the air, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan announced that two of Bankman-Fried's closest business associates had also been charged and had secretly pleaded guilty.

Carolyn Ellison, 28, the former chief executive of Bankman-Fried's trading firm, Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, 29, who co-founded FTX, pleaded guilty to charges including wire fraud, securities fraud and commodities fraud.

Prosecutors and regulators contend that Bankman-Fried was at the center of several illegal schemes to use customer and investor money for personal gain. He faces the possibility of decades in prison if convicted on all counts.

In a series of interviews before his arrest, Bankman-Fried said he never intended to defraud anyone.

Bankman-Fried is charged with using money, illicitly taken from FTX customers, to enable trades at Alameda, spend lavishly on real estate and make millions of dollars in campaign contributions to U.S. politicians.

FTX, founded in 2019, rode the crypto investing phenomenon to great heights quickly, becoming one of the world's largest exchanges for digital currency.

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Bankman-Fried's crypto empire, however, abruptly collapsed in early November when customers pulled deposits en masse amid reports questioning some of its financial arrangements.

His next court date is set for Jan. 3.

FOX Business’ Aislinn Murphy, Marta Dhanis and The Associated Press contributed to this report.