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Comment by bruceb | Hacker News Reader

How does he have 10% of that? "His parents, both Stanford Law professors who were present in the courtroom, will put up the equity in their home to partially satisfy bail conditions." Sure their bay area home is worth millions but not that much.

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The Daily Mail has more info on this:

"His parents, Stanford Law professors Barbara and Alan Bankman-Fried, have agreed to put up the equity they own in their $4million California home, where he will live during his house arrest, as part of the bail requirement.

Two other people - one relative and one non-relative - will fulfil the rest of the bond. It remains unclear if he is required to pay the full $250million or a portion of it."

Bail is virtually always a bond, guaranteed by a bail-bonds agency. The bailee typically puts up 10% of the value of the bail, so here, $25 million.

But generally that is a fee not a deposit the detainee gets back. That's a big fee. From me understanding some jurisdictions will allow you to cut out the bailbonds company, and give a 10% deposit for the bail (still on hook for the full money) maybe that is what happened here?

Practices are changing, and I'm not a specialist.

I've described my understanding of the general case, however.

People with 8 and 9 figure bail don't go to the bondsman on the corner. They usually have their own armed guards from companies like Guidepost Solutions enforce their home detention and it is usually secured by bank accounts or real estate owned by their family or other rich people they know.

Seeing as I'm all but entirely ignorant on the nature of large-figure, high-profile bond guarantees, do you (or anyone else) have references for what arrangements are typical?

Here are some high profile examples:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.44... (granted)

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.45... (denied)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/19/dominique-stra... (granted)

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.72... (denied)

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-colombo-mo... (granted)

At least the news items don't seem to discuss the mechanics of large-figure bail. Just establish instances of same.

(I've yet to dive into the PDFs.)

The PDFs especially the first are more instructive in this regard.

Getting to those now (the display on these is ... other than desirable...)

Informative though, thanks.

And for those wondering how high-profile, high-figure bond arrangements are made, Bloomberg has an explainer:

<https://www.reuters.com/business/how-did-bankman-fried-secur...>

Paywall: <https://archive.vn/bvFbS>

The fact that they are Stanford law professors means that it all works out. Somehow. (That part surely must have been relevant in that sentence, since it was included.)

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