(Bloomberg) -- Caroline Ellison was praised by prosecutors for her “exemplary” cooperation in the FTX fraud investigation, even though it made her the target of relentless harassment and public scrutiny.
Ahead of her sentencing for fraud committed at the crypto exchange, the government highlighted the role Ellison played in securing FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s conviction. The government didn’t recommend a specific sentence, but asked US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to take the former Alameda Research executive’s cooperation into account.
“The government cannot think of another cooperating witness in recent history who has received a greater level of attention and harassment,” Manhattan federal prosecutors wrote in a letter filed Tuesday.
The government said Ellison, 29, had endured far more media exposure than most criminal defendants. Her therapist had shared details about her with an author and Bankman-Fried leaked her personal diary to the New York Times, prosecutors wrote in their memo.
Ellison is due to be sentenced on Sept. 24. Bankman-Fried, her former boyfriend, is serving 25 years in prison for orchestrating the multibillion dollar fraud at FTX.
Last week, her lawyers asked that Kaplan spare her from prison. The US probation department recommended that the Stanford University graduate be sentenced to three years of supervised release.
Ellison, who joined Alameda Research in 2015 before rising to the role of CEO, faced the added complexity of testifying against her on again off again boyfriend who was also her former boss.
“Throughout, however, and certainly during her testimony, Ellison steadfastly remained candid and dedicated to telling the truth — as embarrassing as it often was for her — and in assisting with bringing the most culpable party to justice,” prosecutors wrote.
The daughter of Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professors, Ellison met Bankman-Fried as a summer intern at quant trading shop Jane Street in 2015. Three years later, over coffee in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bankman-Fried convinced her to join his new crypto trading firm Alameda Research, where she could make a lot of money and give it to charity.
After FTX collapsed in November 2022, FBI agents raided Ellison’s home. Her lawyers reached out to prosecutors about cooperating on the same day. After she pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges, she met with them more than 20 times, guiding investigators through the fraud at FTX, including using customer funds to make billions of dollars of risky investments at Bankman-Fried’s direction and trading at Alameda Research, FTX’s sister hedge fund.
Ellison was one of several former Bankman-Fried lieutenants to plead guilty following the collapse of the crypto exchange. FTX co-founder Gary Wang and former engineering chief Nishad Singh, who both testified at Bankman-Fried’s trial, will be sentenced in November and October, respectively.
The case is US v. Bankman-Fried, 22-cr-00673, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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