FTX Insider Caroline Ellison Sentenced to Two Years in Prison

Testifying astatine Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial successful October 2023, Ellison depicted her erstwhile paramour arsenic the driving unit down the FTX fraud. On the stand, she painted Bankman-Fried arsenic forceful and calculating and described for the assemblage his assorted deceptions, the cautious curation of his nationalist image, and his warped narration with risk. “[Bankman-Fried] was wholly comfy with taking a risk, arsenic agelong arsenic helium thought it was a affirmative expected value,” said Ellison, nether introspection by the prosecution. "He talked astir being consenting to instrumentality ample coin flips, similar a coin flip wherever if it comes up tails, you mightiness suffer $10 million, but if it comes up heads, you marque somewhat much than $10 million."

Ellison cried connected the basal arsenic she recalled her “state of dread,” racked with guilt astir the stolen funds, and the perverse alleviation she felt erstwhile FTX began to crumble. “It’s thing that had been connected my caput each day, worrying astir what would hap erstwhile the information yet came out,” said Ellison. “I felt a consciousness of alleviation that I didn’t person to prevarication anymore.”

“In cases similar this, it is usually truthful important to the prosecution to person idiosyncratic who is adjacent to the pb suspect you are trying, who tin instrumentality the assemblage inside,” says Tuchmann. “She was an immensely invaluable witnesser successful an immensely important case.”

The justice volition person taken into relationship the outgo to Ellison of her practice and testimony, too. “In this case, you had what was adjacent to harassment [of Ellison] due to the fact that of the precise ample magnitude of property sum of the case. Then you had the information that her personal, romanticist beingness was revealed to the world—which would beryllium precise achy for anybody,” says Tuchmann. “You tin get much recognition if the practice has consequences. The consequences to her were great.”

As Ellison prepares to statesman her clip down bars, different members of the FTX interior ellipse await their ain sentences. Former FTX executives Nishad Singh and Gary Wang, some of whom person besides pleaded blameworthy to fraud, volition beryllium sentenced connected October 30 and November 20, respectively.

Meanwhile, successful a bid to flight his ain lengthy situation sentence, Bankman-Fried is pushing for a retrial. “Sam Bankman-Fried was ne'er presumed innocent…He was presumed blameworthy by the justice who presided implicit his trial,” wrote his lawyers successful a filing successful the US Court of Appeals. But the chances of the condemnation being overturned are slim and the determination to combat the charges against him to the bitter end—in opposition to Ellison and the different coconspirators—may proceed to beryllium an unfruitful one.

“Kaplan is simply a highly respected judge, peculiarly successful analyzable achromatic collar cases. The taxable of the brief—that helium got it each wrong—is a precise hard statement to make,” says Naftalis. “The entreaty is simply a agelong shot.”

This is simply a processing story. Please cheque backmost for updates.

Additional reporting by Caroline Haskins.