Caroline Ellison to Avoid Prison Time, Polymarket Predicts

Polymarket analysts anticipate that Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, will not be imprisoned for her involvement in the FTX scandal before her September 24 sentence.

The CEO of Alameda Research is expected to avoid jail time, according to Polymarket Betters

As of Monday afternoon, 43% of Polymartkets predicted that the ex-girlfriend of Sam Bankman-Fried would not serve prison time, according to the official poll.

In the interim, 19% and 28% of respondents anticipated that Ellison would be sentenced to 1-11 months and 12-23 months, respectively.

The former CEO of Alameda Research pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering charges in December 2022 for his involvement in Bankman-Fried’s extensive digital asset swindle. This scheme resulted in the misappropriation of $8 billion in funds from FTX investors.

Ellison served as the prosecution’s star witness in SBF’s tumultuous fall 2023 fraud trial, where the former “king of crypto” was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison and ordered to pay a forfeiture of over $11 billion for orchestrating the crypto scheme, as part of her cooperation agreement with the U.S. government.

Bankman-Fried released numerous pages of Ellison’s private diary to The New York Times to undermine her testimony. The diary detailed the ex-crypto executive’s overwhelming emotions in the months preceding FTX’s collapse in November 2022.

This led to removing the crypto exchange founder’s parole before his trial.

Simultaneously, a recent letter from the U.S. government that advocated for a lenient sentence for Ellison was employed to bolster the notion of limited prison time.

U.S. prosecutors wrote in the September 17 letter, “The government is unable to identify another cooperating witness in recent history who has received a greater level of attention and harassment.” “The professional repercussions of this level of notoriety are evident and are unlikely to be short-lived.”

Caroline Ellison and Ryan Salame Face Legal Consequences

A letter of leniency is not uncommon for federal prosecutors to provide to cooperation agreement participants; however, the success of their assistance in the case is a determining factor in obtaining one.

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

Nevertheless, the former crypto exchange executive has since attempted to revoke his guilty plea in response to Michelle Bond’s indictment for campaign finance violations.

Salame is currently facing potential sanctions for what appears to be lying under oath. He claims that he reached an agreement with prosecutors to cease the investigation of Bond in exchange for a guilty plea.

Gary Wang, the chief technology officer of FTX, and Nishad Singh, the director of engineering, are expected to be sentenced shortly.