The previous CEO of Alameda Analysis served as a key prosecution witness towards FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Caroline Ellison, the previous enterprise companion and girlfriend of cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, has been sentenced to 2 years in jail for her position in one of many greatest monetary frauds in historical past.
Ellison, the CEO of Alameda Analysis and Bankman-Fried’s on-and-off girlfriend, was a key prosecution witness in final 12 months’s trial that noticed the founding father of ill-fated crypto change FTX sentenced to 25 years in jail.
Ellison pleaded responsible to seven costs, together with fraud, shortly after the collapse of FTX in 2022, crimes carrying a most sentence of 110 years in jail.
However each the decide and prosecutors mentioned that Ellison deserved leniency for cooperating with investigators, together with testifying towards Bankman-Fried over the course of three days at his trial.
United States District Choose Lewis A Kaplan mentioned on Tuesday that Ellison’s cooperation had been “very substantial”, however a jail time period was justified regardless of her attorneys’ request for a non-custodial sentence given the magnitude of the fraud.
“There’s no manner you’re ever going to do one thing like this once more, I’m persuaded,” Kaplan mentioned.
“However right here’s the factor: this was, if not the very biggest monetary fraud ever perpetrated on this nation or wherever else, near it.”
Kaplan mentioned he would advocate that Ellison be held in a minimum-security jail.
Throughout Bankman-Fried’s trial, Ellison testified that he directed her and others to dip into FTX clients’ funds to hold out riskier transactions through sister firm Alameda Analysis, purchase actual property and make political donations.
Bankman-Fried testified in his personal defence at his trial, accusing Ellison of being a nasty supervisor and casting himself as a well-meaning entrepreneur and altruist who was out of his depth.
Bankman-Fried earlier this month filed an enchantment towards this conviction on seven fraud and conspiracy costs, accusing the decide of blocking his authorized staff from introducing proof that will have helped his defence.
