Caroline Ellison, a former high govt in Sam Bankman-Fried ’s fallen FTX cryptocurrency empire, was sentenced to 2 years in jail on Tuesday after she apologized repeatedly to everybody damage by a fraud that stole billions of {dollars} from buyers, lenders and prospects.
U.S. District Choose Lewis A. Kaplan stated Ellison’s cooperation was “very, very substantial” and “remarkable.”
However he stated a jail sentence was obligatory as a result of she had participated in what could be the “greatest financial fraud ever perpetrated in this country and probably anywhere else” or at the very least near it.
He stated in such a critical case, he couldn’t let cooperation be a get-out-of-jail-free card, even when it was clear that Bankman-Fried had turn into “your kryptonite.”
“I’ve seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years here. I’ve never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison,” he stated.
She was ordered to report back to jail Nov. 7.
Ellison, 29, pleaded responsible almost two years in the past and testified towards Bankman-Fried for almost three days at a trial final November.
At sentencing, she emotionally apologized to anybody damage by the fraud that stretched from 2017 by way of 2022.
“I’m deeply ashamed with what I’ve done,” she stated, combating by way of tears to say she was “so so sorry” to everybody she had harmed immediately or not directly.
She didn’t converse as she left Manhattan federal court docket, surrounded by legal professionals.
In a court docket submitting, prosecutors had referred to as her testimony the “cornerstone of the trial” towards Bankman-Fried, 32, who was discovered responsible of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in jail.
In court docket Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Lawyer Danielle Sassoon referred to as for leniency, saying her testimony was “devastating and powerful proof” towards Bankman-Fried.
The prosecutor stated Ellison’s time on the witness stand was very completely different from Bankman-Fried, who she stated was “evasive, even contemptuous, and unable to answer questions directly” when he testified.
Lawyer Anjan Sahni requested the decide to spare his shopper from jail, citing “unusual circumstances,” together with her off-and-on romantic relationship with Bankman-Fried and the harm brought about when her “whole professional and personal life came to revolve” round him.
FTX was one of many world’s hottest cryptocurrency exchanges, identified for its Superbowl TV advert and its intensive lobbying marketing campaign in Washington, earlier than it collapsed in 2022.
U.S. prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried and different high executives of looting buyer accounts on the alternate to make dangerous investments, make hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of unlawful political donations, bribe Chinese language officers and purchase luxurious actual property within the Caribbean.
Ellison was chief govt at Alameda Analysis, a cryptocurrency hedge fund managed by Bankman-Fried that was used to course of some buyer funds from FTX.
Because the enterprise started to falter, Ellison divulged the large fraud to workers who labored for her even earlier than FTX filed for chapter, trial proof confirmed.
Finally, she additionally spoke extensively with felony and civil U.S. investigators.
Sassoon stated prosecutors have been impressed that Ellison didn’t “jump into the lifeboat” to flee her crimes however as an alternative spent almost two years absolutely cooperating.
Since testifying at Bankman-Fried’s trial, Ellison has engaged in intensive charity work, written a novel and labored together with her dad and mom on a math enrichment textbook for superior highschool college students, in response to her legal professionals.
They stated she additionally now has a wholesome romantic relationship and has reconnected with highschool buddies she had misplaced contact with whereas she labored for and generally dated Bankman-Fried from 2017 till late 2022.
