Car drove into barricade outside FTX founder Bankman-Fried's home: lawyers

Lawyers said the incident underscores the security risks faced by FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and those ensuring his return to court

A car drove into a metal barricade outside Sam Bankman-Fried's home in California, his lawyers said on Thursday, in a recent incident they said underscores the security risks faced by the FTX founder and those ensuring his return to court.

In a filing in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for the 30-year-old onetime billionaire's said three men got out of the car and told a security officer guarding the Palo Alto home, "You won't be able to keep us out." The men, who have not been identified, then got back in the car and drove away.

Bankman-Fried, arrested last month on fraud and conspiracy charges related to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange, is under house arrest at his parents' home until his Oct. 2 trial. Prosecutors say he stole billions of dollars of FTX customer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund.

He has pleaded not guilty.

The lawyers, Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell, did not specify when the incident took place, describing it only as recent.

The lawyers brought up the incident in response to a push by major media outlets, including Reuters, to make public the names of two people who helped guarantee Bankman-Fried's bond alongside his parents, both Stanford Law School professors who put up their house as collateral for the $250 million bond.

The news organizations argued last week that the right of the public to know the two sureties' identities outweighed their privacy and safety rights. Bankman-Fried's lawyers said the media groups "assign far too much weight to the presumption of access" and ignored the safety of the guarantors.