In 2018, a bespectacled Stanford graduate named Caroline Ellison decided to leave her job on Wall Street to join a startup cryptocurrency hedge fund called Alameda Research because she thought she would earn more money to give to charitable causes. Now, a year after Alameda collapsed, Ellison is preparing to testify as a key witness at the Oct. 3 criminal fraud trial against its founder, another budding young philanthropist who also owned the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange: Sam Bankman-Fried. Ellison became one of Bankman-Fried's top lieutenants as he grew his crypto empire.
FILE PHOTO: Former FTX Chief Executive Bankman-Fried at a courthouse in New YorkNEW YORK - In 2018, a bespectacled Stanford graduate named Caroline Ellison decided to leave her job on Wall Street to join a startup cryptocurrency hedge fund called Alameda Research because she thought she would earn more money to give to charitable causes.
Her firsthand account is expected to be crucial to helping Manhattan federal prosecutors try to convict Bankman-Fried on fraud charges stemming from FTX's November 2022 implosion. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to plug losses at Alameda. Prosecutors have said that at trial they plan to play a recording of a Nov. 9, 2022, meeting in which Ellison told Alameda employees the company borrowed FTX user funds to repay its lenders. An employee pressed her on who decided to use customer deposits.
She told the FTX podcast she decided to join Bankman-Fried at Alameda despite lacking experience with cryptocurrencies to "maximize my impact."Ellison indeed earned money, including $28.8 million in bonuses in addition to FTX stock options, FTX's current management said in a July lawsuit against her, Bankman-Fried, and other former executives. FTX said Bankman-Fried took over $500 million in fraudulent loans from Alameda.
She has told prosecutors that Bankman-Fried said it is hard to build a case if information is not written down or preserved, court records show. If she makes a similar statement on the stand, prosecutors could use it to argue Bankman-Fried knew what he was doing was wrong.
Philippines Latest News, Philippines Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Factbox-What we know about Sam Bankman-Fried's time in a notorious Brooklyn jailSam Bankman-Fried, the founder of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been preparing for his Oct. 3 trial on fraud charges from behind bars since Aug. 11, when a U.S. judge jailed him for likely tampering with witnesses. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan revoked Bankman-Fried's bail after he shared the personal writings of Caroline Ellison, his former colleague and romantic partner, with a New York Times reporter. Ellison has pleaded guilty to fraud and is set to testify against him.
Read more »
Bankman-Fried Pushes for Jail Release — Again — Ahead of TrialLess than a week before Sam Bankman-Fried faces one of the biggest white-collar crime cases in US history, his lawyers are taking one more shot at getting him out of a Brooklyn jail.
Read more »
Sam Bankman-Fried's trial to test dueling explanations for collapse of crypto exchangeIn U.S. prosecutors' telling, Sam Bankman-Fried embezzled money from depositors in his FTX cryptocurrency exchange ever since he launched it in 2019, and the resulting shortfall led directly to its collapse as crypto prices swooned last year. But in his own version and in explanations put forth by his lawyers, Bankman-Fried thought FTX, like a bank, could make investments with customers' money as long as they were able to withdraw it - and he did not know that actions taken by his closest colleagues had jeopardized the availability of funds. Over the course of six weeks starting on Oct. 3, a federal jury in Manhattan is due to weigh these dueling narratives during Bankman-Fried's criminal trial on fraud charges, before determining whether the 31-year-old former billionaire is guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.
Read more »
Sam Bankman-Fried's trial to test dueling explanations for FTX's collapseMarket News
Read more »
Bankman-Fried prosecutors may show jury evidence of political donations, judge rulesNEW YORK (Reuters) - Prosecutors may show the jury at Sam Bankman-Fried's trial starting next week evidence of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange ...
Read more »