FTX’s Bankman-Fried accused of leaking private messages to ex-colleague

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US prosecutors have accused FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried of leaking to The New York Times the personal writings of Caroline Ellison, the former head of the cryptocurrency exchange’s affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research and a key witness in the criminal case against him.

In a letter filed in Manhattan federal court late Thursday, the government said Bankman-Fried had attempted to “interfere with a fair trial by an impartial jury” by discrediting Ellison, who last year pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to cooperate with the law. enforcement.

In an article published Thursday by The New York Times, Ellison wrote in a private document in February 2022 that she was “feeling very unhappy and overwhelmed” with her job.

She is said to have added: “At the end of the day I can’t wait to go home and turn off my phone and have a drink and get away from it all.”

Ellison met Bankman-Fried when they were both traders at Wall Street firm Jane Street, and joined her in 2019 at her cryptocurrency exchange, where she ran the trading firm Alameda Research.

Following the collapse of FTX last year, prosecutors alleged that Almeida illegally gambled with billions of dollars of FTX customer deposits. Ellison, whose plea agreement with the US government was announced while Bankman-Fried was on a plane from the Bahamas having agreed to be extradited to New York, told a judge in December that the firm had access to an “unlimited credit line”. FTX.com” and that she “knew it was wrong”.

Ellison said under oath last year that Almeida’s arrangement with FTX was concealed from both FTX customers and investors. He is set to become one of several star witnesses in the Bankman-Fried trial in October, along with former FTX co-founder Gary Wang and former FTX engineer Nishad Singh, who have also pleaded guilty to criminal cases against them.

In their letter late Thursday, prosecutors said Bankman-Fried’s attorney had confirmed that the entrepreneur had met personally with a New York Times reporter and shared documents with that person.

He added that the “effect, if not the intention” of the leak was “not only to harass Ellison, but also to deter other potential trial witnesses from testifying”.

Prosecutors highlighted how the article addressed “the pain associated with (Ellyson’s) romantic break-up with the defendant and her professional insecurities”. The article cited a Google document sent to Bankman-Fried the previous April that referenced their romance, in which Ellison wrote that the break-up “significantly dampened my enthusiasm about Almeida”.

A spokeswoman for Bankman-Fried and attorneys for Ellison did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The New York Times declined to comment.