“He’s wearing a suit.”
So began the testimony of Caroline Ellison, the former business, romantic – and by her estimation, criminal – partner of Sam Bankman-Fried, whom she identified upon prosecutors’ request – albeit in the vaguest of ways.
This bespectacled crypto trader’s unexpected laugh line kicked off perhaps the most lurid testimony yet of the FTX crypto fraud trial. Caroline had found herself deeply involved in many of the allegedly criminal decisions she and Sam made – decisions that ultimately deleted billions of dollars of exchange customers’ wealth. Now, nearly one year after FTX’s collapse, Caroline once again has found herself deeply involved in what’s happening.
Thing is, she couldn’t find Sam.
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For maybe 30 seconds Caroline searched the courtroom for her former paramour. Leaner and sheared, he likely looked different to his longtime colleague-turned-government witness (After all, they probably haven’t seen each other in person since last November.) But Sam was doing her no favors. When prosecutors asked their other witnesses to point Sam out in the courtroom, he sat up straight, tall and high, as if to say ‘I’m over here.’ Not so on Tuesday: Sam stayed low in his chair and stiller than usual until his ex-girlfriend picked him out. Even Bankman-Fried’s parents – whose pained expressions have become a typical feature of the courtroom’s viewing gallery – couldn’t help but to chuckle once she finally identified their son.
The specter of their rocky relationship looms over this trial. Sam, the CEO of FTX, years ago picked Caroline, whom he met during his Wall Street days, to help run his crypto hedge fund Alameda in 2021 (where she began working in 2018). At the time they weren’t dating – they were on a break – but they would again, infusing into their massive financial decisions an imbalanced power dynamic that would make any HR department short-circuit. Their affair is the fluttering strand of subway bathroom toilet paper stuck to their heels. THEY can’t shake it off. YOU can’t look away.
Caroline Ellison would very much…
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