(Bloomberg) -- Former FTX chief engineer Nishad Singh avoided prison time over his role in the multibillion-dollar fraud at the cryptocurrency exchange. Singh was sentenced by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in federal court in New York Wednesday after the 29-year-old’s testimony helped secure a conviction of the ultimate architect of the fraud, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year prison term after a jury found him guilty of fraud in late 2023. Singh was one of three top executives who turned on Bankman-Fried after his once-thriving crypto empire imploded in 2022, exposing a gaping hole in customer deposits that had been used to pay for luxury real estate, political donations and risky investments. At one point, prosecutors said, the collapse cost customers and investors as much as $10 billion.
“I am overwhelmed with remorse for the harm I’ve participated in and caused so many innocent people,” Singh told Kaplan before he was sentenced. “The two months before and the two months after the FTX collapse were the hardest of my life.” Caroline Ellison, who ran Alameda Research, a hedge fund affiliated with FTX, was sentenced to two years in prison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang is due to be sentenced on Nov.
20. Former FTX Digital Markets chief Ryan Salame, who did not testify against Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to seven and a half years prison. In a deal struck with federal prosecutors in February 2023, Singh pleaded guilty to a six count indictment.
