Stanford Law professor and father of fallen cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Joseph Bankman, has canceled the one class he was slated to teach this winter, meaning neither of the FTX founder’s professor parents will be teaching at Stanford Law next quarter. The news comes amidst criticisms surrounding the family’s acquisition of a $16.4 million vacation home from FTX shortly before its collapse.
Barbara Fried is not listed as the instructor for any of the courses in her course catalog next year. She wrote that this was due to a “long-planned” decision to retire and has “nothing to do with anything else going on,” in a statement to The Daily. Fried is an emerita professor, which means she has no regular teaching duties but is free to teach classes in the future. She wrote that she “hopes to” make a return to teaching but was not scheduled to teach this academic year.
Bankman did not respond to the request for comment about his step back from teaching.
Bankman-Fried could potentially face serious criminal charges after the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX in November. Bankman-Fried served as CEO of FTX until Nov. 11 when the company filed for bankruptcy. According to Nerdwallet, FTX, which was valued $32 billion a few weeks ago, crashed due to a lack of liquidity and mismanagement of funds, followed by a large volume of withdrawals from rattled investors.
At least $8 billion dollars of customer funds are missing, according to CNBC, reportedly used to backstop billions at Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund Alameda Research. Both companies are now bankrupt.
Legal experts speculated that Bankman-Fried could face several years of jail time for fraud.
Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor and trial attorney who has represented clients in derivative-related claims and securities class actions, told CNBC that it “sure looks like there’s a chargeable fraud case here.”
Bankman-Fried’s parents became involved in the scandal when Reuters broke that the professors had been named owners of a $16.4 million vacation home purchased by FTX. His parents told Reuters that they are seeking to return the deed to FTX.