Sam Bankman-Fried's parents fear for their son's life if he's sentenced to a "typical prison environment."

In a plea to the court ahead of his sentencing, Stanford Law professor Barbara Fried warned that he will be in "extreme danger" in prison due to his lack of ability to read social cues. 

She wrote:

I genuinely fear for Sam’s life in the typical prison environment. It may be that some of the inmates will come to appreciate Sam once they get to know him. But miscommunication in that environment is dangerous, and Sam’s traits greatly increase the likelihood of its occurring.

Barbara added that her son “can seem odd and off-putting to people that don’t know him" and “has a number of mannerisms that are associated with high-functioning people with [Austism Spectrum Disorder]". 

She continued:

He is bad at responding to social cues in ‘normal’ ways, uncomfortable looking people in the eye, uncomfortable with outward shows of emotion.

The broader public was charmed by many of his eccentricities — or at least pretended to be — while he was on top of the world. The moment he fell, the same public became merciless, ridiculing his awkward traits and verbal style, taking them as a sign of duplicity or worse, and portraying him as a freak with evil intentions.

The media’s weapon of choice is words. The same cannot be said for prisons.