Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison Will Get No Prison Time, Polymarket Betters Predict

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Julia Smith

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Julia Smith

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Julia is an experienced editor with a passion for covering a wide variety of beats. She loves all things politics and regularly covers regulatory updates on emerging technology here for Crypto News.

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Last updated:

September 23, 2024 18:17 EDT

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Polymarket betters are predicting that former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison will receive no prison time for her role in the FTX scandal ahead of her September 24 sentencing.

Polymarket Betters Predict No Jail For Alameda Research CEO

According to the official poll, 43% of Polymartkets predicted the ex-girlfriend of Sam Bankman-Fried would not see jail time as of Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, 19% and 28% predicted that Ellison would be sentenced anywhere from 1-11 months and 12-23 months, respectively.

The one-time Alameda Research CEO pled guilty to fraud and money laundering charges in December 2022 for participating in Bankman-Fried’s massive digital asset scam, which saw $8 billion of FTX investor funds misappropriated.

As part of her cooperation deal with the U.S. government, Ellison testified against the former “king of crypto” as the prosecution’s star witness in SBF’s whirlwind fall 2023 fraud trial that saw him sentenced to 25 years in federal prison and ordered to pay a forfeiture of over $11 billion for orchestrating the crypto scheme.

Bankman-Fried attempted to discredit Ellison’s testimony by releasing several pages of her private diary to The New York Times. The diary chronicled the ex-crypto executive’s feelings of overwhelm leading up to FTX’s collapse in November 2022.

As a result, the crypto exchange founder’s bail was removed before his trial.

At the same time, a recent letter from the U.S. government recommending a lenient sentence for Ellison used it to support limited jail time.

“The government cannot think of another cooperating witness in recent history who has received a greater level of attention and harassment,” U.S. prosecutors wrote in the September 17 letter. “The attendant professional consequences of this level of notoriety are obvious and unlikely to be short lived.”

Caroline Ellison, Ryan Salame Face Legal Consequences

It’s not uncommon for federal prosecutors to provide a letter of leniency for cooperation deal participants, though obtaining one relies on the success of their assistance to the case.

Ryan Salame, the former CEO of FTX Digital Markets, refused to cooperate with federal prosecutors and pleaded guilty to criminal charges this past spring. He received a 7.5-year sentence.

However, the former crypto exchange executive has since tried to revoke his guilty plea after his partner, Michelle Bond, was indicted for campaign finance violations.

Salame, who says he reached an agreement with prosecutors to stop investigating Bond if he pled guilty, is now facing potential sanctions for seemingly lying under oath.

Both FTX’s CTO Gary Wang and director of engineering Nishad Singh are slated to be sentenced in the near future.