WASHINGTON — Caroline Ellison has been sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which has been described as one of the biggest financial frauds in US history. Ellison, 29, was a top executive at the firm and is also the ex-girlfriend of its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing more than $8bn (£6.3bn) from customers.
As part of a plea deal, Ellison admitted charges including wire fraud and money laundering, and testified against Bankman-Fried. She was also ordered to forfeit more than $11bn (£8.2bn) to the court and could pay more if she's ordered to hand over any restitution.
She had faced a maximum sentence 55 times what she was given — 110 years in prison. While Judge Lewis Kaplan called her cooperation with prosecutors "remarkable", he said she was "gravely culpable" and that her help and remorse for the crimes should not be a "get out of jail free card", according to Reuters. In court, Ellison apologized to the victims of the scheme, according to US media reports.
"On some level, my brain can't even comprehend the scale of the harm that I caused," she said. FTX was founded in 2019. Just two years later it had grown into the third biggest crypto exchange in the world, valued at $32bn (£26bn).
Its apparent success turned Bankman-Fried into a billionaire and business celebrity. But, in 2022, rumors of financial trouble sparked a run on its deposits, precipitating the f.