
Caroline Ellison, the former CEO and ex-girlfriend of Sam Bankman-Fried, the star witness in the government's case against the disgraced cryptocurrency wunderkind, will begin her testimony on Tuesday. It is expected to be the most consequential day of testimony yet in Bankman-Fried's high-stakes criminal trial.
Other court filings suggest Cohen and his team may seek to discredit Ellison as a witness by emphasizing that she is cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of a lighter sentence and by leaving open a door to cross-examine her about possible recreational drug use.
Bankman-Fried founded Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency trading firm, years before establishing FTX, the crypto exchange platform that collapsed in November 2022. He ran it for a time before handing it over to Ellison and Sam Trabucco, who operated the company as co-CEOs until August 2022. The deal was dissolved, and Ellison took over as the sole CEO.
Ellison has been expected to testify against Bankman-Fried since December 2022, when she pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and five counts of conspiracy. Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is leading the trial, revoked Bankman-Fried's bail after prosecutors accused him of leaking Ellison's personal diaries to the New York Times this past summer - a move Kaplan said amounted to witness tampering.