Caroline Ellison, the ex-girlfriend and convicted accomplice of disgraced cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to two years in federal prison on Tuesday at Manhattan Federal Court for her role in the FTX fraud scheme.
The feds asked that Ellison, 29, receive a lenient sentence because of her “consistent” and extensive cooperation in their case against Bankman-Fried, who was convicted last year and later sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Citing Ellison’s “candor and her refusal to minimize her own role or sidestep the most humiliating aspects of her conduct,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon said it was impossible to overstate the significance of Ellison’s “critical” cooperation in securing the November 2023 conviction of the architect of one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan told Ellison that while she was “gravely culpable,” her testimony over three days of the trial was “remarkable.” Still, the judge said a “get out of jail free card” was not something he could see a path to.
“The first difference, of course, between Mr. Bankman-Fried and Ms. Ellison is she cooperated and he denied the whole thing… . I’ve seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years here, I’ve never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison. I [didn’t see] a single time when she was caught in the slightest error of fact — the slightest inconsistency with whatever she had told the government months before and what she said on the stand. I saw no inconsistency at all between the documentary evidence and what she said on the stand,” Kaplan said.
“And what she said on the stand was very incriminating of herself, and she pulled no punches.”
Kaplan said he believed Ellison was vulnerable and exploited by Bankman-Fried and that she was genuinely remorseful.
“I think Mr. Bankman-Fried is sorry, too,” the judge said. “He’s really sorry he got caught. Your remorse is the real thing.”
Before learning her fate, Ellison, who ran FTX’s sister hedge fund Alameda, pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges ahead of Bankman-Fried’s trial. On Tuesday, she apologized to people who lost their jobs and money after FTX’s November 2022 implosion and said she felt “deeply ashamed.”
“I want to start by saying how sorry I am,” Ellison told the court. “To all the victims and everyone I harmed directly and indirectly, I am so, so sorry.”
In November, a jury found Bankman-Friend guilty of wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, finding the MIT grad and one-time wunderkind defrauded his investors and used $8 billion he stole from his cryptocurrency trading platform, FTX, to fund political contributions, live like a king in the Caribbean, and make other lavish purchases.
While awaiting trial under house arrest at his parents’ Palo Alto, Calif., home, Kaplan violated his $250 million bond amid allegations he leaked Ellison’s diary to reporters.
This developing story will be updated.