The Disgraced former cryptocurrency executive Caroline Ellison has been released from federal custody after serving about 14 months for her involvement in the multibillion-dollar FTX fraud scandal. Ellison was previously head of FTX’s associated trading arm and the on-again, off-again romantic partner of the crypto exchange’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.
Ellison, 31, was sentenced to 24 months in prison in 2024 after pleading guilty to seven charges, including wire fraud and money laundering. She featured prominently as a witness for the prosecution of Bankman-Fried, testifying that her former paramour directed her to commit crimes. Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Ellison’s release is an epilogue to one of the largest financial-fraud investigations in US history. The collapse of FTX, once among the world’s biggest crypto firms, attracted immense media attention, rattled markets and for a time led to increased regulatory scrutiny of the crypto industry.
Along with Bankman-Fried, Ellison was the most prominent character in FTX’s $8bn fraud. Her digital footprint, which included Tumblr posts on race science and polyamory, provided substantial fuel for social media mockery and tabloid headlines. When Ellison and other FTX executives turned against Bankman-Fried during his trial, they provided one of the most dramatic moments of the proceedings. Netflix announced last year it would adapt the FTX story with Julia Garner starring as Ellison.
At her 2024 sentencing, Judge Lewis Kaplan said that he had never seen someone cooperate with prosecutors like Ellison in his 30 years on the bench. Kaplan nevertheless told the court that, given the severity of the crimes, he had decided to sentence Ellison to jail time. He ordered her to forfeit $11bn in assets.
Ellison began serving her two-year sentence in a Connecticut prison, but was transferred last October to community confinement, the Bureau of Prisons told Business Insider. She left the facility on Wednesday.
Bankman-Fried continues to serve his sentence in a Los Angeles low-security federal prison. He launched a push last year for a pardon from Donald Trump, which included giving an interview from jail to the rightwing media influencer Tucker Carlson.
But Trump stated this month to the New York Times that he had no plans to pardon Bankman-Fried.