​Girlfriend faced 110 years before co-operating ​

Disgraced FTX crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison was facing up to 110 years in prison before she agreed to co-operate with the federal government, her plea agreement shows.

The former Alameda hedge fund CEO, 28, pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in an agreement signed on Monday.

“The total maximum sentence of incarceration on Counts One through Seven of the Information is 110 years’ imprisonment,” the document filed by the US lawyer for the Southern District of New York read.

The agreement also indicates that Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang had agreed to “co-operate fully” with the feds, in exchange for which they will likely get much lighter sentences.

Crypto exchange FTX collapsed in November after federal investigators say Bankman-Fried used investors’ money to fund the Alameda hedge fund and by summer this year Alameda owed FTX’s customers approximately $8 billion.

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For her part in the scheme, the hefty charges Ellison was slapped with included wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.

However, in exchange for Ellison’s decision to “truthfully and completely disclose all information concerning all matters” in the investigation, prosecutors agree to release the Stanford-educated math whiz on $250,000 bail.

Deals struck with federal prosecutors are not usually revealed before they have been completed, so the amount of prison time — if any — Ellison has agreed to serve will not be announced until after she has finished co-operating, likely once Bankman-Fried’s trial has concluded.

The bail sum is 1000 times less than that of her former paramour, Bankman-Fried, who is holed up at his parents’ Palo Alto home with an ankle monitor after being released on a record-breaking $250 million bail bond following his extradition from the Bahamas.
 

As part of her plea, Ellison, a Massachusetts native whose parents both teach at MIT, is also not allowed to travel outside the continental United States, and was made to surrender her travel documents to law enforcement.

The plea agreement shows Ellison is still on the line for financial damages and has also been separately sued by the federal government.

Earlier this week, legal experts told The Post why they felt Ellison would turn on Bankman-Fried.

“Almost invariably, people say, ‘At the end of the day, I have to look out for my interest or my family’s interest. Even if I don’t relish what I’m being asked to do,’” said Jack Sharman, a white-collar criminal defence lawyer for Lightfoot, Franklin and White.

“[Ellison and Wang] will undermine likely many of [Bankman-Fried’s] defences or arguments that they were in charge or were doing things without his knowledge,” added Michael Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor and white-collar defence lawyer at Cole Schotz.

Since the FTX scandal imploded in November, Ellison has given up her jetsetting lifestyle hopping between the company’s ultra-luxe Bahamas penthouse and Hong Kong and has maintained a low profile. She has only been spotted once, grabbing coffee in New York City on December 4.

This article was originally published by the New York Post and reproduced with permission