Sam Bankman-Fried’s Parents: Lawsuit, Settlement, and Pardon

Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents are Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both longtime Stanford Law School professors who were drawn into the fallout of FTX’s November 2022 collapse. The FTX bankruptcy estate sued them in September 2023, alleging they enriched themselves with misappropriated company funds; that case was settled and dismissed without prejudice in February 2025. Neither parent was criminally charged. They have since been reported to be seeking a presidential pardon for their son, who is serving a 25-year federal sentence for fraud.

Who They Are

Joseph Bankman joined Stanford Law School in the late 1980s and holds the Ralph M. Parsons Professorship of Law and Business. He is a tax policy scholar, co-author of widely used tax casebooks, a trained clinical psychologist, and the architect of California’s “ReadyReturn” simplified tax-filing system. He has testified before Congress on tax shelters.¹

Barbara Fried, a Harvard-trained attorney who formerly practiced at Paul Weiss, also joined Stanford’s law faculty in the late 1980s. Her scholarship covers contracts, federal income taxation, legal theory, distributive justice, and moral psychology, and she is known for her work on consequentialist philosophy.² She co-founded Mind the Gap, a political donor advisory network that raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Democratic causes and built a network of roughly 2,500 donors.³ She resigned from Mind the Gap in 2022 after her son’s arrest.⁴

Their Roles at FTX

Joseph Bankman took a leave from Stanford in December 2021 to work full-time as a senior adviser to the FTX Foundation.⁵ The bankruptcy estate later described him as a “de facto officer, director, and/or manager” who gave strategic advice, vetted outside counsel, helped with hiring, and directed charitable giving. Among those charitable transfers was more than $5.5 million routed to Stanford University, which said it would return the full amount.⁶

Barbara Fried held no formal title at FTX. The bankruptcy estate nonetheless called her “the single most influential advisor” on political contributions by her son and the FTX Group.⁴

The FTX Bankruptcy Estate’s Lawsuit

On September 18, 2023, the FTX bankruptcy estate sued Bankman and Fried in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, seeking to recover millions of dollars the couple had allegedly received from their son’s companies.⁷ The complaint accused them of having “exploited their access and influence within the FTX enterprise to enrich themselves” while the company was functionally insolvent.⁸

The specific allegations included:

A $16.4 million luxury villa in a gated community in the Bahamas, purchased by FTX and recorded with Bankman and Fried as owners. Property records described it as a “vacation home,” and the estate alleged the transfer happened while FTX was “teetering on the brink of collapse.” Sam Bankman-Fried later said the home was intended as company property for relocating staff and that he didn’t know “how that was papered in.” A spokesperson for the parents said they had been in the process of returning the deed.⁹
A $10 million cash gift that, according to the estate, followed Joseph Bankman’s complaints about his $200,000 FTX salary and his request that it be raised to $1 million. Rather than raise the salary, Sam Bankman-Fried wired the $10 million gift, funded by a loan from Alameda Research and structured around the lifetime estate and gift tax exemption.¹⁰
Nearly $7 million allegedly moved by Joseph Bankman from FTX-affiliated business accounts into bank accounts he shared with Fried.⁶
A whistleblower complaint, dating back to 2019, that the estate said Joseph Bankman “directly participated in efforts to cover up” and that “threatened to expose the FTX Group as a house of cards.”⁸
Perks including an appearance in an FTX Super Bowl commercial, flights on privately chartered jets, and $1,200-per-night hotel stays billed to the company.¹¹

The Political Donation Allegations

Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Sam Bankman-Fried gave roughly $40 million to political candidates, committees, and causes, and federal prosecutors separately alleged he used straw donors to make some of those contributions. The estate’s complaint called Barbara Fried the “point person” for her son’s political giving strategy and alleged she encouraged straw donations to conceal FTX as the source of funds. The complaint cited a 2021 email in which Fried proposed that a $1 million donation to Mind the Gap be made in FTX director of engineering Nishad Singh’s name rather than her son’s, to avoid the “impression that funding MTG is a family affair”; according to the complaint, both men agreed.⁴ FEC records show no Mind the Gap contributions recorded under Sam Bankman-Fried’s name. Singh pleaded guilty in February 2023 to charges including campaign finance violations. Mind the Gap’s executive director said the organization had no knowledge of the alleged illegal activities.

Barbara Fried was never named as a defendant in any criminal indictment tied to the FTX collapse.

Response and Settlement

Through their attorneys Sean Hecker and Michael Tremonte, Bankman and Fried called the allegations “completely false” and said the lawsuit was “a dangerous attempt to intimidate Joe and Barbara and undermine the jury process” before their son’s criminal trial.⁷

After more than a year of procedural extensions, the FTX Recovery Trust filed a stipulation of dismissal on February 24, 2025. The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning the estate kept the right to refile.¹² Financial terms were not publicly disclosed.¹³

Sentencing and the Pardon Push

Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted in November 2023 on seven felony counts, including two fraud counts and five conspiracy counts tied to the theft of $8 billion from FTX customers. On March 28, 2024, Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced him to 25 years in prison and entered an $11 billion forfeiture order; prosecutors had sought at least 40 years.¹⁴

Both parents submitted letters to Judge Kaplan. Barbara Fried’s letter, filed February 27, 2024, argued her son was not a “cartoonish villain” and asked the court to understand his behavior through the lens of high-functioning autism and lifelong depression. She wrote that he had lost 30 pounds in prison because of limited access to vegan food, said he had been motivated by utilitarian philosophy and the idea of “earning to give,” and claimed he had tried to cooperate with bankruptcy officials after FTX’s collapse but was rebuffed.¹⁵

After sentencing, the parents turned to clemency. Bloomberg Tax reported in early 2025 that Bankman and Fried had been meeting with “lawyers and other figures considered to be in Trump’s orbit” to discuss a possible pardon. The couple declined to comment, and whether they had made direct contact with the White House was not clear.¹⁶ In a June 2026 interview, Sam Bankman-Fried said he “absolutely” wanted a pardon but stayed “tight-lipped” about his parents’ role, saying, “I can’t speak for them.”¹⁷ Fried told The New Yorker, “saving Sam is the major project of our lives.”⁶ On June 12, 2026, a unanimous Second Circuit panel rejected her son’s appeal of his convictions and sentence.¹⁴

Where They Stand at Stanford Today

Barbara Fried retired from teaching and holds emerita status at Stanford Law School. Joseph Bankman, on leave since late 2021, still appears on the Stanford Law School faculty page with his professorship, contact information, and course listings; the university has not publicly commented on any change in his status.¹ Neither parent has faced any publicly reported disciplinary action from the university.

1
Stanford Law School. Joseph Bankman Faculty Profile
2
Stanford Law School. Barbara Fried CV
3
Puck. Mind the Gap
4
CNBC. Sam Bankman-Fried Mother Advised Son on Political Contributions
5
SFGate. FTX Sues SBF Parents Stanford Professors
6
NPR. Its Not Just FTXs Sam Bankman-Fried His Parents Also Face Legal Trouble
7
New York Times. FTX Sam Bankman-Fried Parents Sued
8
CNBC. SBFs Parents Sued by FTX for Millions of Dollars in Misappropriated Funds
9
New York Post. Sam Bankman-Fried Parents Bahamas Home
10
Forbes. Sam Bankman-Fried Legal Fees Funded by Alameda Money Gifted to Father
11
WUSF. Its Not Just FTXs Sam Bankman-Fried His Parents Also Face Legal Trouble
12
Protos. FTX Dropped Lawsuit Against Allan Bankman and Barbara Fried
13
Kroll Restructuring. FTX Docket – Alameda Research LLC et al. v. Bankman et al.
14
Al Jazeera. Sam Bankman-Fried Loses Appeal to Overturn Fraud Convictions and Prison
15
New York Times. Barbara Frieds Letter to Judge Kaplan
16
Bloomberg Tax. Sam Bankman-Frieds Parents Explore Seeking Trump Pardon for Son
17
Fox Business. Sam Bankman-Fried Says He Absolutely Wants Presidential Pardon