Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Analysis based by Sam Bankman-Fried, goes right into a improper automotive as she exits the Manhattan federal courtroom after testifying on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023 in New York. (AP Photograph/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Caroline Ellison, a former prime 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 harm by a fraud that stole billions of {dollars} from buyers, lenders and prospects.
U.S. District Choose Lewis A. Kaplan mentioned Ellison’s cooperation was “very, very substantial” and “exceptional.”
However he mentioned a jail sentence was vital as a result of she had participated in what is likely to be the “best monetary fraud ever perpetrated on this nation and possibly anyplace else” or not less than near it.
He mentioned 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 change into “your kryptonite.”
“I’ve seen numerous cooperators in 30 years right here. I’ve by no means seen one fairly like Ms. Ellison,” he mentioned.
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She was ordered to report back to jail Nov. 7.
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Ellison, 29, pleaded responsible almost two years in the past and testified in opposition to Bankman-Fried for almost three days at a trial final November.
At sentencing, she emotionally apologized to anybody harm by the fraud that stretched from 2017 by way of 2022.
“I’m deeply ashamed with what I’ve finished,” she mentioned, combating by way of tears to say she was “so so sorry” to everybody she had harmed straight or not directly.
She didn’t communicate as she left Manhattan federal courtroom, surrounded by attorneys.
In a courtroom submitting, prosecutors had known as her testimony the “cornerstone of the trial” in opposition to Bankman-Fried, 32, who was discovered responsible of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in jail.
In courtroom Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Lawyer Danielle Sassoon known as for leniency, saying her testimony was “devastating and highly effective proof” in opposition to Bankman-Fried.
The prosecutor mentioned Ellison’s time on the witness stand was very totally different from Bankman-Fried, who she mentioned was “evasive, even contemptuous, and unable to reply questions straight” when he testified.
Lawyer Anjan Sahni requested the choose to spare his consumer from jail, citing “uncommon circumstances,” together with her off-and-on romantic relationship with Bankman-Fried and the harm precipitated when her “entire skilled and private life got here to revolve” round him.
FTX was one of many world’s hottest cryptocurrency exchanges, identified for its Superbowl TV advert and its in depth lobbying marketing campaign in Washington, earlier than it collapsed in 2022.
U.S. prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried and different prime executives of looting buyer accounts on the trade to make dangerous investments, make thousands and 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.
In the end, she additionally spoke extensively with legal and civil U.S. investigators.
Sassoon mentioned prosecutors had been impressed that Ellison didn’t “soar 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 in depth charity work, written a novel and labored along with her dad and mom on a math enrichment textbook for superior highschool college students, in keeping with her attorneys.
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They mentioned she additionally now has a wholesome romantic relationship and has reconnected with highschool pals she had misplaced contact with whereas she labored for and generally dated Bankman-Fried from 2017 till late 2022.
