NEW YORK — Caroline Ellison, a former high government in Sam Bankman-Fried ’s fallen FTX cryptocurrency empire, faces the potential of years in jail when she is sentenced Tuesday for fraud, however prosecutors mentioned she deserves leniency for her “extraordinary cooperation” as they investigated the corporate.
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.
In a court docket submitting, prosecutors mentioned mentioned her testimony was the “cornerstone of the trial” in opposition to Bankman-Fried, 32, who was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in jail.
Asking the court docket for a lighter sentence, Ellison’s personal legal professionals cited each her testimony on the trial and the trauma of her off-and-on romantic relationship with Bankman-Fried — although additionally they pressured that she wasn’t making an attempt to evade accountability for her crimes.
“Caroline blames nobody however herself for what she did,” her legal professionals wrote in a court docket submitting. “She regrets her position deeply and can carry disgrace and regret to her grave.”
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 high executives of looting buyer accounts on the change 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 government at Alameda Analysis, a cryptocurrency hedge fund managed by Bankman-Fried that was used to course of some buyer funds from FTX.
Her work relationship with Bankman-Fried was difficult by her romantic emotions for him, her legal professionals wrote in a court docket submitting.
“From the beginning, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s habits was erratic and manipulative. He initially professed robust emotions for Caroline and urged their liaison would develop right into a full relationship. However after just a few weeks, he would ‘ghost’ Caroline with out rationalization, avoiding her exterior of labor and refusing to reply to messages that weren’t work-related,” her legal professionals mentioned.
Because the enterprise started to faulter, Ellison divulged the huge fraud to staff who labored for her even earlier than FTX filed for bankruptcy, her legal professionals wrote.
Finally, she additionally spoke extensively with U.S. investigators.
“Ellison cooperated at nice private {and professional} price, enduring harsh media and public scrutiny and tried witness tampering by Bankman-Fried,” prosecutors wrote.
They mentioned she was forthcoming about her personal misconduct and was “uniquely positioned to elucidate not solely the what and the way of Bankman-Fried’s crimes, but in addition the why.”
“In her many conferences with the Authorities, Ellison approached her cooperation with exceptional candor, regret, and seriousness,” they wrote. “She devoted herself to in depth doc overview that helped determine key corroborating paperwork in an investigation hamstrung by Bankman-Fried’s systematic destruction of proof.”
Her testimony on the trial, they mentioned, was credible and compelling.
Choose Lewis A. Kaplan will determine the sentence.
Since testifying at Bankman-Fried’s trial, Ellison has engaged in in depth charity work, written a novel and labored together with her mother and father on a math enrichment textbook for superior highschool college students, based on her legal professionals.
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.
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