The media buzz surrounding Sam Bankman-Fried has faded following his conviction on seven fraud-related charges, but the fallout is ongoing—including for his parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried. This is reflected in one of the top-read stories in the Wall Street Journal this weekend, titled "Why Are We So Obsessed With Sam Bankman-Fried’s Parents?"
The piece—cheekily illustrated with a grown-up Sam flinging food from a baby's high chair—raises the intriguing question, especially for those of us with kids, of whether any parent can ever view the behavior of their own child objectively. The author suggests it's impossible even if the parents in question are brilliant legal scholars like Bankman and Fried.
I suspect that's correct. The disconnect of Bankman-Fried’s parents reminded me of another criminal trial I saw in the same court nearly a decade ago, when a judge sentenced another smart and once-promising young person to life in prison. That case involved the Eagle-Scout-turned-drug-kingpin Ross Ulbricht—a.k.a. Dread Pirate Roberts—who was guilty six ways to Sunday. Yet his mother, a sophisticated and intelligent woman, continues to insist on his innocence despite a mountain of evidence.
As the Journal puts it, the "story of SBF’s parents shows us how deranging parental love is." Meanwhile, the agony of their son's conviction is hardly the only preoccupation of Bankman and Fried as another weekend piece in the newspaper, titled "Bankman-Fried’s Parents Stand by Their Sam—and Face Their Own Legal Perils," makes clear.
That piece highlights how the pair, known around Stanford as "Barb and Joe," according to a recent unflattering profile by Businessweek, are facing civil charges in relation to their son's fallen FTX crypto empire. Those charges accuse the pair of accepting perks like a $16 million Bahamian villa and a $10 million cash gift paid for with FTX funds.
The pair have so far refused to return the money even as they spend heavily on high-priced lawyers and a PR firm. This is an odd decision, to put it politely, especially as Fried is a leading scholar in the field of ethics. I don't possess her credentials, but I fail to see how there is anything ethical about proclaiming "Finders, Keepers" when it comes to millions of dollars of customer money the FTX estate wants back.
Finally, there is another possible domino that could fall when it comes to Bankman-Fried's parents—criminal charges. To be clear, they have not been charged with any crime but, as I recount in a new feature for Fortune, lawyers are split on whether the pair are in the sights of the Justice Department. Whatever happens, the story of Bankman-Fried and his parents is far from over.
Jeff John Roberts
jeff.roberts@fortune.com
@jeffjohnroberts
