Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research, is expected to begin her two-year prison sentence today for her involvement in the FTX scandal.
Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Ellison to surrender to a minimum-security facility near Boston by 2:00 pm ET, likely the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut.
Ellison’s sentencing follows her December 2022 guilty plea to seven charges, including wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering, linked to the misuse of customer funds between FTX and Alameda. Her testimony during former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial — where he was convicted on all counts — was critical in securing his conviction.
Since FTX’s collapse in November 2022, Ellison faced massive public attention and harassment, highlighted in a government memo describing her as a target of online memes and media scrutiny. Her surrender marks her as the third executive in the FTX case to face prison time, following sentences for Bankman-Fried and Ryan Salame, former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets.
The former co-CEO of Alameda Research also reached a settlement agreement with FTX debtors, agreeing to turn over most of her assets to help settle a lawsuit filed against her by the FTX bankruptcy estate. Ellison will transfer all of her assets that are not forfeited to the government or used to cover legal fees.
Ellison, who pleaded guilty to multiple fraud charges in December 2022 following the collapse of FTX, has mostly stayed out of the public eye since her testimony at the trial of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried in October 2023.
Ellison also agreed to cooperate extensively with the FTX bankruptcy estate in its ongoing investigations. FTX filed for bankruptcy in late 2022, and the debtors sued Ellison, Sam Bankman-Fried, and several other former executives to recover assets. The litigation targets include about $22.5 million in bonus payments to Ellison in February 2022 and an additional $6.3 million paid to her in 2021.
Following the settlement, FTX stated that Ellison will have no remaining assets except for some physical personal property.
Gary Wang, FTX co-founder and former chief technology officer, is set to be sentenced next on Nov. 20, following in the footsteps of Nishad Singh, former FTX engineering director, who received a sentence of time served.
