{"id":107302,"date":"2024-09-24T12:04:01","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T12:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/caroline-ellison-key-witness-in-ftx-fraud-case-set-to-be-sentenced\/"},"modified":"2024-09-24T12:04:01","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T12:04:01","slug":"caroline-ellison-key-witness-in-ftx-fraud-case-set-to-be-sentenced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/caroline-ellison-key-witness-in-ftx-fraud-case-set-to-be-sentenced\/","title":{"rendered":"Caroline Ellison, key witness in FTX fraud case, set to be sentenced"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/syndication.abcaudio.com\/files\/2024-09-24\/GETTY_92424_CarolineEllison.jpg\" alt><figcaption>Caroline Ellison, former chief executive officer of Alameda Research LLC, exits court in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. (Stephanie Keith\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>(NEW YORK) &#8212; Caroline Ellison, a key witness in the FTX case, is set to be sentenced on Tuesday for her role in one of the largest financial frauds in history.<\/p>\n<p>Ellison, 29, a former crypto executive, had pleaded guilty to multiple charges in connection with the federal fraud and conspiracy case involving the crypto trading platform. She cooperated with prosecutors and was a key witness during the trial last year of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, her former boyfriend.<\/p>\n<p>Ellison &#8212; who was the co-chief executive of Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried&#8217;s companion hedge fund &#8212; testified over three days during the trial, telling the court that she committed fraud with her former on-again-off-again boyfriend and at his direction.<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried was ultimately found guilty on all counts for defrauding FTX customers out of $8 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of her sentencing in New York Tuesday afternoon, Ellison&#8217;s attorneys urged Judge Lewis Kaplan to be lenient, arguing Ellison &#8220;unflinchingly acknowledged her own wrongdoing, without minimization, blame shifting or self-pity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She time and again proved herself an enormously credible and important cooperating witness&#8221; against Bankman-Fried, they added.<\/p>\n<p>Federal prosecutors agreed Ellison provided &#8220;extraordinary cooperation that was crucial to the Government&#8217;s successful prosecution&#8221; of Bankman-Fried.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Although she did not blow the whistle on any misconduct before FTX&#8217;s collapse, she came clean prior to FTX&#8217;s declaring bankruptcy to her employees on November 9, 2022,&#8221; prosecutor Danielle Sassoon wrote in a letter to the judge. &#8220;Ellison approached her cooperation with remarkable candor, remorse, and seriousness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ellison faces 110 years in prison, according to court filings.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors declined to make a specific sentencing recommendation. Defense attorneys suggested a sentence in line with a recommendation from probation officials of time served plus three years supervised release.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Caroline poses no risk of recidivism and presents no threat to public safety. It would therefore promote respect for the law to grant leniency in recognition of Caroline&#8217;s early disclosure of the crimes, her unmitigated acceptance of responsibility for them, and\u2014most importantly\u2014her extensive cooperation with the government,&#8221; defense attorney Anjan Sahni wrote in a letter to the judge.<\/p>\n<p>Sahni outlined Ellison&#8217;s &#8220;complex&#8221; relationship with Bankman-Fried that began when the two met at Jane Street Capital in 2015 when she was an intern and he was a junior trader. He said their &#8220;on-again-off-again, sometimes-secret relationship&#8221; had &#8220;warped&#8221; her moral compass and led her to take actions &#8220;that she knew to be wrong, helping him steal billions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bankman-Fried was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison. Judge Kaplan also ordered that he forfeit $11 billion that the government can use to compensate victims.<\/p>\n<p>The former crypto billionaire has filed an appeal to overturn his conviction.<\/p>\n<p>Two former FTX executives who also pleaded guilty in the case &#8212; former director of engineering Nishad Singh and co-founder Gary Wang &#8212; are set to be sentenced in October and November, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caroline Ellison, former chief executive officer of Alameda Research LLC, exits court in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. (Stephanie Keith\/Bloomberg via Getty Images) (NEW YORK) &#8212; Caroline Ellison, a key witness in the FTX case, is set to be sentenced on Tuesday for her role in one<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/caroline-ellison-key-witness-in-ftx-fraud-case-set-to-be-sentenced\/\">Read More &rarr;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,31,2],"tags":[273,271,276,274,270,123,275,133,124,272,102,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}