Caroline Ellison, the ex-girlfriend of former Alameda Research CEO and fallen crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried, has drawn attention online following Bankman-Fried’s arrest Monday at an unconfirmed location and an unconfirmed photo of her initially seen in Manhattan, MarketWatch reported Tuesday that she would cooperate with authorities in December. Speculation inspired.
Banman-Fried’s arrest on Tuesday comes after federal prosecutors and regulators filed a battery of charges that Alameda Research was given access to billions of dollars in client assets at cryptocurrency exchange FTX, according to new FTX CEO John J. Ray III. He alleged in written testimony that they were used. Similar charges have yet to be filed against Ellison, despite her alleged romance with Bankman-Fried and her role as Alameda’s CEO.
Ellison, a former colleague of Bankman-Fried’s at hedge fund Jane Street since her undergraduate days at Stanford, joined Alameda at the request of Bankman-Fried, who eventually became CEO after he left to focus on FTX. The 28-year-old, whose parents were both economists at MIT, joined Alameda in 2018, taking on the associate role before colleague Sam Trabuco stepped down in October 2021.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York — which specializes in sophisticated financial crimes and is one of the federal teams prosecuting Bankman-Fried — reportedly received visits from both Ellison’s attorneys, Stephanie Avakian of WilmerHalle and WilmerHalle partner Anjan Sahni. Bloomberg reported in early December, though the nature of those visits could not be confirmed. Avakian served as director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division under Presidents Biden, Trump and Obama, and Sahni, a former federal prosecutor, is in the running for the 2021 U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bloomberg reported. (Related: Federal prosecutors had FTX on their radar months before collapse: report)
Please verify: A user claimed to have seen Carolyn Ellison at Ground Support Coffee on West Broad in Soho Manhattan at 8:15 AM. This means she is not in Hong Kong and is in NY not under arrest. pic.twitter.com/QUduYO9GfZ
– Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) December 4, 2022
Unverified photo of Ellison at Ground Support Cafe, a Manhattan coffee shop about a 15-minute walk from the Manhattan US Attorney’s office; Posted On Twitter on December 4, Ellison started speculation that he was working with the authorities, according to Fortune. Alameda is based in Hong Kong and FTX has moved to the Bahamas, Bankman-Fried will now transfer to the US in 2021.
WilmerHale and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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