The FTX Trial’s Key Witness Is Already Leaving Prison

During the 2023 trial, Ellison delivered damning testimony, describing lies, reckless borrowing and the secret misuse of FTX customer funds.

Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Alameda Research and a central figure in the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire, has been quietly moved out of a federal prison facility after serving roughly 11 months of a two-year sentence.

The 31-year-old was transferred on October 16 from the low-security Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, to community confinement.

From Star Witness to Home Confinement

According to Business Insider, the latest status keeps her under federal custody but allows her to serve the remainder of her sentence either at home or in a halfway house. The US Bureau of Prisons confirmed the transfer but declined to share details about her exact location or the terms of her confinement, citing privacy and security concerns.

Prison records reveal Ellison is expected to be released on February 20, 2026, nearly nine months earlier than her original sentence, though officials did not explain why.

Ellison reported to Danbury in early November 2024 after being sentenced for her role in the multibillion-dollar fraud that collapsed FTX and its sister trading firm, Alameda Research. She pleaded guilty to conspiring with Bankman-Fried in what prosecutors described as an $11 billion scheme that involved secretly using customer funds from FTX to cover losses and risky bets at Alameda.

Ellison’s testimony at the 2023 trial offered some of the most startling revelations. The former Alameda Research CEO told jurors that Bankman-Fried directed her to lie to investors and aggressively borrow funds, which left Alameda with roughly $10 billion in loans by mid-2022. Ellison also described extreme measures discussed to recover frozen Chinese funds, including negotiations, using third-party crypto wallets, and an alleged $100 million bribe. She further revealed attempts to raise money from Saudi Arabia, misuse of FTX customer funds, and the creation of multiple doctored balance sheets to hide Alameda’s insolvency.

Her cooperation played a major role in securing Bankman-Fried’s conviction, a fact acknowledged by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan at her sentencing. While praising Ellison’s assistance as “substantial,” Kaplan said the scale and seriousness of the misconduct made a prison sentence unavoidable, and rejected her lawyers’ request for no jail time.

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SBF’s Prison Rants

Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year prison sentence after a jury convicted him on all seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. He is currently held at a low-security federal prison in San Pedro, California, while he appeals both his conviction and the length of his sentence.

Unlike Ellison, who has kept a low profile, Bankman-Fried has continued to make public claims about the case. In recent months, he accused FTX’s court-appointed CEO, John J. Ray III, of intentionally keeping the exchange in bankruptcy despite what he described as a “perfectly solvent” business.

He has also circulated lengthy statements insisting FTX never collapsed due to fraud, blaming lawyers, regulators, and political forces for what he calls a mishandled liquidity crisis. More recently, Bankman-Fried has suggested his arrest was politically driven, while pointing to his shift toward centrist views and donations to Republican causes.