Caroline Ellison, who was the former CEO of Alameda Research and ex-girlfriend of former FTX CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried was on the stand for the second day. The 28-year-old, who pleaded guilty to several federal fraud charges gave further testimony on how the crypto exchange FTX and hedge fund Alameda Research worked and how they duped investors and FTX customers, at the criminal trial of Sam Bankman-Fried.
Her testimony on Tuesday said that Sam Bankman-Fried had been the one who told her and other staff members to channel FTX customers’ funds to its sister company Alameda Research, a hedge fund company.
On Wednesday, she continued with her testimony which said that Sam Bankman-Fried had told Ellison to come up with “alternative” balance sheets as investor Genesis had been asking for a balance sheet. She said that she prepared several balance sheets to make the firm look better on paper than it was. She noted that Sam Bankman-Fried chose one among the misleading ones to present to Genesis and other lenders.
Caroline Ellison, who pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, said that she remained in a “constant state of dread” and that she was worried that the news that FTX used customers’ money to bail out Alameda would become public knowledge and that “everything would come crashing down.”
The former CEO of Alameda Research also testified that she had a Google doc with a subcategory titled “things Sam is freaking about.” Some of the entries included “raising from MBS.” Sam Bankman-Fried thought of raising funds from Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) the ruler of Saudi Arabia.
Another entry in the subcategory read “getting regulators to crackdown on Binance.” Binance is a rival exchange that also made early investments in FTX. It is also facing regulatory scrutiny.
Caroline Ellison also commented on personal aspects including the image Sam Bankman-Fried cultivated, his use of social media to promote the image of FTX and much more. She also spoke of how they communicated through disappearing Signal messages and more.
Caroline Ellison also said that she faced a lot of emotional turmoil and that she “felt a sense of relief” that she no longer had to lie. Earlier, she had also mentioned that FTX was like a boy’s club, and she was paid less than the male executives at FTX
Caroline Ellison pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges in December 2022 and has been cooperating with the federal authorities. FTX co-founder Gary Wang and senior executive Nishad Singh, who was the Director of Engineering also pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges. Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to several fraud charges and is currently on trial.
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