Caroline Ellison, a former top executive with the failed cryptocurrency firm FTX, was sentenced to two years in prison Tuesday, Sept. 24, in connection to a fraud scheme that stole $8 billion from investors and customers. The judge and prosecutors agreed to give Ellison a lighter sentence after she pleaded guilty and testified against FTX founder and her former boyfriend Sam Bankman-Fried during his trial last November.
Bankman-Fried was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The judge called Ellison’s cooperation “very, very substantial” but added a prison sentence was necessary because she participated in what could possibly be the “greatest financial fraud ever perpetrated in this country or anywhere else.”
Ellison is to report to prison Nov. 7.