Sam Bankman-Fried could face years in prison after reports that Alameda’s Caroline Ellison hired iconic Clinton lawyer

Over the weekend, the former CEO of FTX’s sister company Alameda Research Caroline Ellison was spotted in a New York coffee shop just 6 minutes away from FBI headquarters after many weeks of speculation that she was on the run in Hong Kong.

According to a post by Autism Capital, Ellison was spotted at 8:15 am on Sunday morning at the Ground Support Coffee on West Broad in SoHo Manhattan. This, as Autism Capital noted, “would mean she is not in Hong Kong and is in NY not in custody.”

https://twitter.com/AutismCapital/status/1599466158893432832

A statement from a barista at the coffee shop confirmed that it was in fact, Caroline.

https://twitter.com/AutismCapital/status/1599472567295037440

There were also unconfirmed reports that Carolin is already cooperating with members of the Department Of Justice (DOJ), and specifically, the Southern District of New York (SDNY), which is currently investigating the collapse of FTX.

CNBC also reported yesterday that “Sam Bankman-Fried could face years in prison” if the U.S. ever gets around to arresting him. The disgraced FTX founder and the former crypto knight is currently under investigation by numerous government agencies including SEC, CFTC, SDNY, and DOJ. But arresting him isn’t going to be straightforward, CN

Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor and trial attorney who has represented clients in derivative-related claims and securities class actions, told CNBC:

“It sure looks like there’s a chargeable fraud case here. If I represented Mr. Bankman-Fried, I would tell him he should be very concerned about prison time. That it should be an overriding concern for him.”

Mariotti added: “The argument would be that Alameda was tricking these people into getting their money so they could use it to prop up a different business. If you’re a hedge fund and you’re accepting customer funds, you actually have a fiduciary duty [to the customer].”

In an interview at the New York Times deal book summit on Wednesday, Bankman-Friend attempted to shift blame for his company’s collapse on everyone but himself. Multiple times during the interview, SBF was seen shaking profusely and failed to answer the questions.

The sudden collapse of FTX came as a surprise to thousands of investors who lost billions in the company. Overnight, SBF went from a multi-billionaire to just one credit card with $100,000 left in his bank account. But the question everyone is asking is: Why SBF still isn’t in jail?

Bankman-Fried founded FTX in 2019 with his co-founder Gary Wang. The Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX offers derivatives products like futures and options as well as spot trading. Once an unknown startup, FTX has become a key player in the crypto space, rivaling the likes of Coinbase and Binance.