Caroline Ellison, the star witness in the prosecution of her former boyfriend, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced Tuesday in New York feder

FTX fraudster Caroline Ellison sentenced to 2 years in prison, ordered to forfeit $11 billion

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2024-09-25 01:00:09

Caroline Ellison, the star witness in the prosecution of her former boyfriend, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced Tuesday in New York federal court to two years in prison and ordered to forfeit $11 billion for her role in the massive fraud and conspiracy that doomed the cryptocurrency exchange once valued at $32 billion.

The prison term was significantly stiffer than the recommendation by the federal Probation Department that Judge Lewis Kaplan sentence Ellison, who had run the hedge fund Alameda Research, to three years of supervised release, with no time at all behind bars. Defense lawyers also had requested a no-prison sentence for Ellison.

Alameda received much of the $8 billion in customer funds looted by Bankman-Fried from FTX. The stolen money was used for Alameda's trading operation and other purposes.

While Kaplan praised Ellison for her extensive cooperation with prosecutors — which led to the conviction of Bankman-Fried — the judge said her criminal sentence needed to deter other potential bad actors from committing fraud.