Judge predicts that the public will not be so mean to Caroline Ellison

Addressing Ellison directly, the judge acknowledged that her cooperation had “exerted a heavy emotional and personal toll” and predicted that the negative reactions and scrutiny she faced would “likely” subside.

“Every part of your life has been turned upside down and exposed to an unusual degree,” Kaplan said. “And now that will probably, hopefully, ease up.”

Ellison pleaded guilty to conspiring with Bankman-Fried in the $11 billion fraud scheme and testified at his trial how the two used his hedge fund, Alameda Research, to invest billions of dollars worth of assets they secretly siphoned from customers of FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange controlled by Bankman-Fried.

Kaplan ultimately sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison. Although the judge spoke positively of Ellison, he said he could not let her get away with it.

Ellison's lawyers and prosecutors each spoke about the intense public spotlight that has turned their lives upside down since FTX collapsed in November 2022.

“Her appearance was the subject of fascination and critical scrutiny on the Internet,” her lawyer Anjan Sahni told the judge when the verdict was announced on Tuesday.

“She was essentially forced to live in hiding,” he added.

Before his trial last fall, Bankman-Fried leaked her private diary entries to the New York Times, whereupon Kaplan accused him of “witness tampering” and sent him to prison.

Some of the evidence in the case comes from Bankman-Fried's on-and-off romantic relationship with Ellison, which dates back to their time together at the trading firm Jane Street.

In her diary entries, Ellison talked about trying to impress Bankman-Fried, who rose to the top of technology, finance and politics at the helm of FTX.

“She had a crush on him from the beginning,” Sahni told the judge at the sentencing. “And then she saw him have incredible success.”

Ellison “couldn't bring himself to leave Bankman-Fried's orbit,” Sahni said.

“I found myself drifting,” Ellison told the judge in her own remarks Tuesday. “I subordinated my own values ​​to Bankman-Fried's goals.”

Kaplan said he was convinced that Bankman-Fried had “taken advantage” of Ellison.

“You are a very strong person in some ways. But you are not untouchable,” the judge said. “For some reason – it is difficult for me to understand – Mr. Bankman-Fried had your kryptonite. You were vulnerable and you were taken advantage of.”

Sahni said Ellison offered to give the government the rights to her life story so that she would never profit from the publicity of her story.

Prosecutors asked that Ellison receive no prison time at all because of her cooperation. They also believed that the attention she attracted was a factor in the amount of punishment she already faced.

“There are numerous films and television shows currently being produced about the demise of FTX that will only add to the public attention to which Ellison has been subjected,” prosecutors wrote in a brief before the verdict. “The government cannot think of any other cooperating witness in recent history who has received a greater level of attention and harassment.”

While the judge praised Ellison's full cooperation, he said she still needed to spend some time behind bars.

“The fact that this is such a serious case that it is literally a get-out-of-jail-free card – I don't see any way to accomplish that,” Kaplan said.