Caroline Ellison sentenced to two years after serving as star witness against FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried
Caroline Ellison, the former crypto executive and romantic partner of the disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 24 months in prison in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday. Ellison was a central figure in the FTX bankruptcy saga and key witness for the prosecution in the $8bn fraud trial that ended with Bankman-Fried’s conviction.
Ellison served as the CEO of Alameda Research, which was the trading arm of the now defunct FTX crypto exchange. The collapse of FTX, once valued at $32bn, was directly linked to revelations that it was attempting to financially prop up Alameda with fraudulent accounting. Subsequent investigations and criminal charges found that both FTX and the hedge fund had used billions in customer funds for risky trades and lavish personal spending.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, the sentencing judge for Bankman-Fried and another FTX executive, delivered the ruling in Ellison’s case. Kaplan gave Bankman-Fried 25 years in prison, but there was no expectation that Ellison would face anywhere near as harsh a sentence, despite her charges carrying a maximum of 110 years in prison. Prosecutors called her cooperation in the case against Bankman-Fried “not only substantial, but exemplary” in court filings and did not request a specific sentence, arguing for leniency during the hearing. Ellison’s attorneys asked she be sentenced to three years supervised release with no prison time.
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