NEW YORK — Caroline Ellison, the tech executive who ran Sam Bankman-Fried ’s hedge fund while sometimes dating him, testified Tuesday that he directed her to commit crimes before his cryptocurrency empire collapsed last November. She also revealed that her former boss thought he might be U.S. president someday.
With Bankman-Fried watching from his courtroom seat, Ellison, 28, said at the New York City trial that she committed fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering with Bankman-Fried and others as they stole from customers and investors in FTX, a company Bankman-Fried started, and lenders to his hedge fund, Alameda Research.
“He directed me to commit these crimes,” she said of Bankman-Fried.
Repeatedly, Ellison made clear that Bankman-Fried was behind the biggest financial moves in his companies, to the point that bitcoins he created were sometimes called “Sam’s coins.”
She described him as “very ambitious” and envisioning eventually leading huge companies and using his money influentially, especially in politics.
He even thought there was a 5% chance he’d become president someday, Ellison said.
“When you say president, what are you referring to?” asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon.
“Of the United States,” Ellison answered.
Shortly after Ellison’s highly anticipated turn on the witness stand began, she was asked to identify Bankman-Fried in the courtroom. The bespectacled Ellison stood and scanned the courtroom for a long minute, at first unable to spot him, before gesturing his way with a flip of her hand and saying he was “over there wearing a suit.”
The appearance of Bankman-Fried, who sat with his lawyers, has changed dramatically recently as he has lost weight and trimmed his well-known wild coif into a tightly cropped look more traditional among financial professionals.
Bankman-Fried, 31, could face decades in prison if he is convicted of charges lodged against him when he was brought to the United States from the Bahamas last December. He has pleaded not guilty.
Bankman-Fried was one of the world’s wealthiest people on paper, with an estimated net worth of $32 billion, when his cryptocurrency businesses collapsed as investors and customers sought to empty their accounts last November. Bankruptcy proceedings followed as prosecutors alleged that stolen funds were used to fund his businesses, make donations and contribute to political campaigns in the hopes of influencing cryptocurrency regulation in Washington.
Ellison testified under a cooperation deal that could win her leniency at sentencing. It could also be pivotal when the jury decides Bankman-Fried’s fate on the seven counts he faces.