Caroline Ellison, a former top executive in Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed crypto empire, was sentenced to two years in prison Tuesday — after a judge praised her “remarkable,” damning testimony against her ex-lover at his fraud trial.
The 29-year-old MIT grad held back tears and bowed her head slightly forward after Judge Lewis Kaplan revealed her fate at a hearing in Manhattan federal court.
“To make it literally a get out of jail free card is not something that I can my see my way clear to,” Kaplan said as Ellison stood, her hands clasped together in front of her, wearing a dark gray blazer over a maroon dress.
The judge called the FTX fraud, in which customers of the failed cryptocurrency exchange saw billions of dollars vanish in 2022 within days, one of the largest financial crimes in history.
Prosecutors had urged the judge to impose a “lenient” sentence on Ellison, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges and agreed to cooperate with the feds.
The judge drew a distinction Tuesday between her and Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison after the judge found he did not show any remorse for his crimes.
“While you were gravely culpable in this fraud, there is no doubt that you had remarkable cooperation,” Judge Kaplan said. “That’s a fundamental distinction between you and Mr Bankman-Fried.”
Ellison had served as the head of Alameda Research, the hedge fund that Bankman-Fried owned, and had been his on-and-off girlfriend in the years before his crypto empire crumbled, according to trial testimony.
This is a developing story. Please check back for more updates.
