Lawyers for Caroline Ellison, the star witness in the prosecution of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, are recommending no prison time for their client\u2019s role in the implosion of the crypto empire that was run by her former boss and ex-boyfriend.<\/p>\n
In a court filing\u00a0Tuesday night, the attorneys said that, at most, Ellison should be sentenced to time served and supervised release because of her swift return to the U.S. from FTX\u2019s Bahamas headquarters in 2022 and her choice to voluntarily cooperate with the U.S. attorney\u2019s office and financial regulators in helping them understand what went wrong at FTX and sister hedge fund Alameda Research.<\/p>\n
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over Bankman-Fried\u2019s case,\u00a0cited Ellison\u2019s testimony\u00a0when he decided in March to sentence the FTX founder to\u00a025 years behind bars.<\/p>\n
Ellison, who ran Alameda Research,\u00a0agreed to a plea deal in December 2022, a month after FTX spiraled into bankruptcy. Unlike Bankman-Fried, who was\u00a0convicted of all seven\u00a0criminal fraud charges against him,\u00a0Ellison pleaded guilty\u00a0to conspiracy and financial fraud charges, rather than go to trial.<\/p>\n
The Tuesday filing also refers to the recommendation of the court\u2019s Probation Department that Ellison be given a sentence of \u201ctime served with three years of supervised release\u201d as a credit to her \u201cextraordinary cooperation with the government\u201d and \u201cher otherwise unblemished record.\u201d Lawyers added that the department\u2019s presentence report, which referenced numerous character testimonials speaking to Ellison\u2019s ethics and integrity, also recommended that she not be fined.<\/p>\n
\u201cCaroline poses no risk of recidivism and presents no threat to public safety,\u201d the filing says. \u201cIt would therefore promote respect for the law to grant leniency in recognition of Caroline\u2019s early disclosure of the crimes, her unmitigated acceptance of responsibility for them, and \u2014 most importantly \u2014 her extensive cooperation with the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the filing, FTX CEO John Ray, who has been guiding the crypto firm through bankruptcy proceedings, describes Ellison\u2019s cooperation as \u201cvaluable\u201d in helping his team protect and preserve \u201chundreds of millions of dollars\u201d in assets. He added that she has worked with his advisors to provide information regarding private keys to cryptocurrency wallets that contain \u201cestate assets, DeFi positions, FTX exchange internal account information, the use of third-party exchanges for pre-petition trading, and pre-petition auditing practices.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 67-page document describe large swaths of Ellison\u2019s life, starting from her earliest days in Boston and stretching into her protracted and troubled romance with Bankman-Fried. In that time, she \u201cmoved around the globe at his direction, first to Hong Kong and later the Bahamas,\u201d and \u201cworked long, stressful, Adderall-fueled hours,\u201d the filing says.<\/p>\n
Bankman-Fried forced Ellison into a sort-of isolation, culminating in her moral compass being \u201cwarped,\u201d the lawyers say. At his direction, Ellison helped \u201csteal billions,\u201d all while living \u201cin dread, knowing that a disastrous collapse was likely, but fearing that disentangling herself would only hasten that collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBankman-Fried convinced her to stay, telling her she was essential to the survival of the business, and that he loved her,\u201d all \u201cwhile also perversely demonstrating that he considered her not good enough to be seen in public with him at high-profile events,\u201d the filing says.<\/p>\n
An attorney for Bankman-Fried didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The document makes a point of noting that she has \u201cdrawn comfort from a new partner,\u201d whose name is omitted from the document, but whom her friends recognize as \u201csupportive and a positive, grounding influence.\u201d She\u2019s also written a novel, that\u2019s \u201cunrelated to the facts of this case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellison, who turns 30 in November, has a sentencing hearing on Sept. 24, in the same courthouse where she took the stand for several days in Bankman-Fried\u2019s trial. Her former roommates and ex-FTX executives, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang, will be sentenced in October and November, respectively.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u00a0CNBC\u2019s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Lawyers for Caroline Ellison, the star witness in the prosecution of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, are recommending no prison time for their client\u2019s role in the implosion of the crypto empire that was run by her former boss and ex-boyfriend. In a court filing\u00a0Tuesday night, the attorneys said that, at most, Ellison should be sentenced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}