Caroline Ellison was sentenced Tuesday to 24 months for her role in covering up Sam Bankman-Fried's rampant fraud at FTX—which caused billions in cu

Caroline Ellison gets 2 years for covering up Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX fraud

submited by

Style Pass

2024-09-24 20:30:02

Caroline Ellison was sentenced Tuesday to 24 months for her role in covering up Sam Bankman-Fried's rampant fraud at FTX—which caused billions in customer losses.

Addressing the judge at sentencing, Ellison started out by explaining "how sorry I am" for concealing FTX's lies, Bloomberg reported live from the hearing.

"I participated in a criminal conspiracy that ultimately stole billions of dollars from people who entrusted their money with us," Ellison reportedly said while sniffling. "The human brain is truly bad at understanding big numbers," she added, and "not a day goes by" that she doesn't "think about all of the people I hurt.”

Assistant US Attorney Danielle Sassoon followed Ellison, remarking that the government recommended a lighter sentence because it was important for the court to "distinguish between the mastermind and the willing accomplice." (Bankman-Fried got 25 years.)

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan noted that he is allowed to show Ellison leniency for providing “substantial assistance to the government.” He then confirmed that he always considered the maximum sentence she faced of 110 years to be "absurd," considering that Ellison had no inconsistencies in her testimony and fully cooperated with the government throughout their FTX probe.