Caroline Ellison, the FTX fraudster, was given a 2-year prison sentence and ordered to forfeit $11 billion.
- In Manhattan's U.S. District Court, the star witness in the prosecution of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison, was sentenced.
- The federal Probation Department recommended three years of supervised release for the sentence.
- In December 2022, a month after FTX went bankrupt, Ellison, the head of Alameda Research, struck a plea deal.
In New York federal court, Caroline Ellison, the key witness for the prosecution of her ex-boyfriend, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, was given a two-year prison sentence and ordered to forfeit $11 billion for her part in the fraud and conspiracy that led to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange, which was once worth $32 billion.
Judge Lewis Kaplan ultimately imposed a significantly harsher sentence on Ellison than the federal Probation Department had recommended, which called for three years of supervised release with no time in prison. Additionally, Ellison's legal team had also requested a no-prison sentence.
In December 2022, Ellison, the former head of Alameda Research, a hedge fund linked to FTX, reached a plea deal, just a month after FTX declared bankruptcy.
Ellison, 29, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and financial fraud charges.
In contrast to Bankman-Fried, he opted to go to trial and was found guilty of all seven fraud charges brought against him in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
In March, he was given 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture.
Since then, Bankman-Fried has appealed his conviction and requested a new trial and a different judge, claiming that Kaplan was biased against him.
On Monday, Ellison's lawyers announced that they had reached financial settlements with prosecutors and the FTX debtor's estate.
Both Zuckerberg and Musk were facing a similar statutory maximum sentence of approximately 110 years in prison for their offenses.
In white-collar cases, such as FTX, defendants who cooperate with prosecutors rather than fighting charges are often given leniency when sentenced.
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Technology
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