Convicted cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend was sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison for her role in the $11 billion collapse of his FTX exchange and Alameda Research hedge fund.
Caroline Ellison, who struck a plea deal with prosecutors and served as the star witness at Bankman-Fried’s trial, grew teary while apologizing in U.S. District Court in New York City, Bloomberg reported.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about all of the people I hurt,” Ellison said. “I participated in a criminal conspiracy that ultimately stole billions of dollars from people who entrusted their money with us.”
Ellison, 29, also said that the longer she worked as Alameda’s CEO, the more wrapped up she became with what Bankman-Fried, known as SBF, thought of her.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t brave,” she said while sniffling. “Lying isn’t something that comes naturally to me.”
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Ellison also said it was “a relief to be completely honest and open with prosecutors and investigators.”
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who in March sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison, praised Ellison’s performance on the witness stand, saying her testimony was remarkably consistent and “very incriminating of herself and she pulled no punches about it.”
“I’ve seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years. I’ve never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison,” he said.
Kaplan also told Ellison that she was a “very strong person” but that “Mr. Bankman-Fried had your Kryptonite.”
“You were vulnerable and you were exploited,” he said.
But the judge also said that Ellison was “by no means free of culpability” and that the case was too serious for her to merit a “get out of jail free card.”
Kaplan said Ellison could serve her sentence at a minimum-security prison and allowed her to remain free on $250,000 bond pending a surrender that could be set by Nov. 7.
Bankman-Fried, 32, has been imprisoned since August 2023 for leaking Ellison’s personal writings to the New York Times in a bid to discredit her as a witness.
He filed an appeal earlier this month, arguing that Kaplan wrongly let prosecutors present a “false narrative that FTX’s customers, lenders, and investors had permanently lost their money.”
In May, FTX said in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing that it owed about $11.2 billion to is creditors and that it had recovered between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion to distributed to them, the Associated Press reported at the time.
Two other co-defendants, former FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, who both pleaded guilty in the case, are scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 30 and Nov. 20, respectively.
