NEW YORK — The trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried took a star flip when his former fellow prime govt, and girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, testified in opposition to him, saying he directed her to commit crimes earlier than his cryptocurrency empire collapsed final November.
The Stanford-educated Ellison, 28, testifying in Manhattan federal courtroom all through the afternoon, stated she dedicated fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and cash laundering together with Bankman-Fried and others.
Asked by a prosecutor about Bankman-Fried’s involvement, she stated: “He directed me to commit these crimes.”
Repeatedly, Ellison made clear that Bankman-Fried was behind the most important monetary strikes in his firms, to the purpose that bitcoins he created had been generally referred to as “Sam’s coins.”
She described him as “very ambitious” and envisioning ultimately main enormous firms and utilizing his cash influentially.
He even thought there was a 5% likelihood he’d turn out to be president sometime, Ellison stated.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon requested her what he thought he’d be president of.
“Of the United States,” Ellison answered.
Ellison stated Bankman-Fried arrange methods that enabled his agency Alameda Research to withdraw limitless sums of cash from FTX accounts and he “directed us to take FTX money to repay our loans.”
She stated Alameda ultimately withdrew as much as $14 billion from FTX, though a few of it was paid again.
Some of the cash, she stated, went to political donations, together with $35 million funneled by means of one political operative to Republican candidates and one other $10 million that Bankman-Fried steered to President Joe Biden, cash that she stated Bankman-Fried thought purchased him a measure of affect and recognition.
Shortly after Ellison’s extremely anticipated activate the witness stand started, she was requested to establish Bankman-Fried within the courtroom. Ellison stood and scanned the courtroom for a protracted minute, at first unable to identify him, earlier than gesturing his means with a flip of her hand and saying he was “over there wearing a suit.”
At the outset, Sassoon requested her how she knew the defendant. She stated she met him at Jane Street, a hedge fund, the place she labored as an intern earlier than becoming a member of his firm after he fashioned Alameda Research in 2017.
She then volunteered that that they had “dated a couple years.”
Eventually, Bankman-Fried put in Ellison as chief govt at Alameda, the place she was paid $200,000 in wage along with her greatest bonus of $20 million occurring in 2021.
Ellison’s testimony instantly adopted two days of testimony from Gary Wang, an FTX cofounder and one other key determine in Bankman-Fried’s interior circle. He additionally testified underneath a plea settlement with prosecutors that he was directed by the defendant to arrange software program loopholes that allowed Alameda to empty FTX accounts of limitless funds.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”