Sam Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend Caroline Ellison, who pleaded guilty and testified against the former cryptocurrency idol at his trial, was sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison for her role in the case, Manhattan federal prosecutors told AFP.
• Also read: Cryptocurrencies: FTX expected to recover between $14.5 and $16.3 billion
• Also read: Cryptocurrencies: Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
The former chief executive of Alameda Research, the hedge fund at the center of the case, theoretically faced a total of 110 years in prison after pleading guilty to seven counts, including fraud.
While her defense demanded that she avoid any prison sentence, the Manhattan prosecutor’s office had simply suggested to Judge Lewis Kaplan to take into account her “exemplary” cooperation, without requesting a specific sentence.
Caroline Ellison was a key prosecution witness at the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, the fallen cryptocurrency superstar who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for one of the worst financial frauds in recent history. “SBF,” who is serving his sentence in prison, has appealed.
A billionaire before the age of 30, Sam Bankman-Fried had become a figure symbolizing the boom in cryptocurrencies, of which he had become an ambassador.
In just a few months, he had turned his small start-up FTX, launched in 2019, into the world’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange platform.
But the case revealed that “SBF” had used, without their consent, the assets of customers of its digital currency exchange platform FTX, to carry out risky transactions through its sister company Alameda, in order to buy real estate or to make political donations.
FTX imploded in November 2022. At the time of its bankruptcy filing, it was missing about $9 billion.
At trial, Caroline Ellison described the accused as a kind of sorcerer’s apprentice, capable of dipping into clients’ funds without hesitation to fuel his risky projects.
Sam Bankman-Fried had instead tried to pin the blame on his former girlfriend and business partner, describing her as a poor manager.
