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 function in one of many largest 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 the ill-fated crypto change FTX sentenced to 25 years in jail.
Ellison pleaded responsible to seven expenses, together with fraud, shortly after the collapse of FTX in 2022, crimes carrying a most sentence of 110 years in jail.
However each the choose and prosecutors stated 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 Decide Lewis A Kaplan stated 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 approach you’re ever going to do one thing like this once more, I’m persuaded,” Kaplan stated.
“However right here’s the factor: this was, if not the very best monetary fraud ever perpetrated on this nation or wherever else, near it.”
Kaplan stated he would suggest 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 prospects’ funds to hold out riskier transactions by way of 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 expenses, accusing the choose of blocking his authorized staff from introducing proof that may have helped his defence.