An on-again, off-again ex-girlfriend of convicted FTX fraudster Sam Bankman Freed will receive a shorter sentence than her original sentence, according to reports.
Caroline Ellison, who ran Bankman Freed's cryptocurrency hedge fund Alameda Research, was arrested on Nov. 7 at the Federal Correctional Institute in Danbury, Connecticut, on charges related to wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. He pleaded guilty and reported to serve a two-year sentence. FTX collapses.
However, her release date is July 20, 2026, or three months short of two years, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons records. According to Business Insider.
The newspaper has contacted Ellison's attorney for comment.
In 2018, then-President Donald Trump signed the First Step Act, which allows incarcerated individuals to complete their sentences if they demonstrate good behavior.
“All inmates earn good behavior time (GCT), which is expected on release date,” a federal prison official told Business Insider.
A spokesperson said prisoners are “eligible to earn up to 54 days of GCT for each sentence imposed by the court”.
In accordance with federal law, the Bureau of Prisons “continues to prorate the amount of GCT earned in the final year of a sentence,” a spokesperson said.
Ellison, 30, was sentenced in September after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors who oversaw the Bankman-Freed case.
During the trial, Ellison testified that he used Bankman Freed and Alameda Research to invest billions of dollars' worth of customer deposits in risky bets.
Ellison's attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan not to give her any prison time, citing her cooperation.
But Kaplan told Ellison during the sentencing hearing, “When it comes to a case this serious and it's literally a get-out-of-jail-free card, I don't see a way to do that.”
Kaplan said Ellison's cooperation was “very substantial” and “remarkable.”
But he said a prison sentence was necessary because she took part in “the biggest financial fraud ever committed in this country, and probably in any other country,” or at least close to it.
She tearfully told the sentencing hearing that she was “deeply ashamed of what I did” and that she was “truly sorry” to everyone she had hurt, directly or indirectly.
Bankman Freed, 32, remains incarcerated at Brooklyn's notorious Metropolitan Detention Center after appealing his conviction.
with post wire
