Caroline Ellison, former FTX exec and Sam Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend, sentenced to 2 years in prison

Caroline Ellison, whose testimony helped convict her former boss and ex-boyfriend, disgraced cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced Tuesday to 2 years in jail for fraud and conspiracy.

U.S. District Decide Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Ellison in New York Metropolis to 24 months and ordered her to forfeit $11 billion for her involvement within the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s crypto trade firm, FTX. She had confronted a most sentence of about 110 years.

Ellison, 29, accepted a plea deal on expenses of conspiracy and monetary fraud in December 2022, a month after FTX spiraled into chapter 11. She testified in opposition to Bankman-Fried for almost three days at his trial in November.

Bankman-Fried was convicted of all seven prison fraud expenses in opposition to him and sentenced to 25 years in jail. Prosecutors stated in a courtroom submitting that Ellison’s testimony was the “cornerstone of the trial.”

Legal professionals for Ellison had requested that she be sentenced to time served and supervised launch, citing her cooperation. In a courtroom doc filed this month, her legal professionals stated she made a swift return to the U.S. in 2022 from FTX’s headquarters within the Bahamas and voluntarily cooperated with the U.S. lawyer’s workplace.

She willingly labored with monetary regulators in serving to them perceive what went incorrect at FTX and at Alameda Analysis, FTX’s sister hedge fund, which she ran, the doc stated.With a limiteless credit score line from FTX, Alameda Analysis obtained a lot of the $8 billion in FTX buyer funds looted by Bankman-Fried, based on federal prosecutors. He used it for private bills, buying and selling, Alameda debt funds and political contributions, Ellison and different witnesses alleged.

In searching for a sentence of time served, protection lawyer Anjan Sahni stated Ellison has “recovered her ethical compass” and “profoundly regrets” not having left Bankman-Fried’s orbit.

Ellison addressed the courtroom by studying from a press release by which she apologized to these she damage and expressed disgrace for her half within the saga.

However Kaplan, describing FTX’s collapse as probably the best monetary fraud uncovered in U.S. historical past, stated he couldn’t comply with a “literal get-out-of-jail-free card” for the defendant.

He ordered her to give up to authorities on or after Nov. 7.

Within the 67-page courtroom doc filed Sept. 10, FTX CEO John Ray, who has been guiding the crypto agency by means of chapter proceedings, stated Ellison’s cooperation with the federal government was “useful” in serving to his staff protect and shield “a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars}” in property.

Her legal professionals wrote that Bankman-Fried pressured her right into a kind of isolation that “warped” her ethical compass. They stated that at his route, Ellison helped “steal billions” whereas she lived “in dread, understanding {that a} disastrous collapse was probably, however fearing that disentangling herself would solely hasten that collapse.” Her work relationship with Bankman-Fried was additional sophisticated by their on-and-off romantic relationship.

Ellison’s legal professionals stated Bankman-Fried had persuaded her to remain by telling her that he cherished her and that she was important to the enterprise’ survival “whereas additionally perversely demonstrating that he thought of her not adequate to be seen in public with him at high-profile occasions.”

Earlier than it collapsed in 2022, FTX was one of many world’s hottest cryptocurrency exchanges, was identified for its intensive lobbying marketing campaign in Washington and its Tremendous Bowl business.

Bankman-Fried and different high executives have been accused of looting buyer accounts on the trade to make dangerous investments, purchase luxurious actual property within the Caribbean, make thousands and thousands of {dollars} in unlawful political donations and bribe Chinese language officers.

Ryan Salame, a former high lieutenant of Bankman-Fried, was the primary of the FTX government staff to be sentenced. In Could, a decide handed down a 7½-year jail sentence and ordered him to pay greater than $6 million in forfeiture and greater than $5 million in restitution.

Two different former executives, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang, might be sentenced in October and November, respectively.