Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline has left prison and been transferred to community supervision after serving only 11 months in prison
Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison was released from Danbury Prison and placed on community supervision after serving just 11 months for her cooperation and good behavior. (Previous summary: SBF prison greetings caused huge waves: after six months of issuing "gm", FTT soared 45%)
(Background supplement: Three Arrows Capital (3AC) court summoned SBF and other FTX executives: charged with illegal liquidation of US$1.5 billion in positions)
Contents of this article
Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, who played a key role in the FTX Group, has Quietly left FCI Danbury, Connecticut on October 16, 2025, and transferred to the "community supervision" system.
This means she is no longer behind bars, but under the supervision of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in a transitional rehabilitation center or home confinement setting. Ellison was originally sentenced to 24 months in prison, but actually spent about 11 months in prison; the latest records on the BOP official website show that her final release date was updated to February 20, 2026, nearly nine months earlier than originally expected.
Why can the sentence be reduced?
On September 24, 2024, the District Court for the Southern District of New York sentenced Ellison to 2 years in prison for "extraordinary cooperation"; on November 7 of the same year, she reported to Danbury Prison.
Business Insider reported that she was allowed to be transferred in October 2025 because, on the one hand, she provided key testimony in the Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) trial and was regarded as a "tainted witness" by the prosecutors; on the other hand, in accordance with the First Step Act and the established procedures of the BOP, low-risk, non-violent inmates who have completed rehabilitation courses can shorten their sentences through "good behavior hours" and related programs.
The sum of these deductions allowed her to enter community supervision early.
In sharp contrast to the fate of SBF
Although he has left behind bars, Ellison still must abide by regulations such as curfew, regular check-in and random testing. Any violation can be immediately sent back to prison. In contrast, FTX founder SBF was sentenced to 25 years in prison on March 28, 2024 on major fraud charges. The fate of the two people is in stark contrast.
Extended reading:SBF’s sentence was shortened to 2044, three major reasons for commutation were revealed, and ex-girlfriend Caroline is expected to be released from prison in the middle of next year
SBF’s legal team appealed for a retrial
Activity Zone previously reported that SBF’s legal team submitted a 15-year-old lawsuit to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in early November. page of appeal, asking the court to overturn the previous verdict against SBF and retry the case.
SBF’s defense attorney argued that trial judge Lewis Kaplan restricted a large amount of financial information favorable to SBF, preventing the jury from seeing FTX’s true asset position. SBF also released the document "FTX: Where did the money go?" through the X platform at the end of October. ", listed the following statement, saying that it could fully meet customers' withdrawal needs at the time:
"FTX and Alameda Research hold a total of approximately US$25 billion in assets and US$16 billion in equity, which can fully cover US$8 billion in withdrawal needs. The platform has never been insolvent."
The legal team pointed out that if the relevant forms and on-chain wallet addresses could be fully presented at the time, the jury might have a completely different understanding of the case. They also challenged the judge for holding unusual preview hearings before trial and limiting the defense's ability to request internal emails and transaction records.
In addition, SBF also strongly criticized FTX’s bankruptcy receivership team in its appeal. His criticism was directed at legal counsel Sullivan & Cromwell and current CEO John Ray III, claiming that the two parties collected nearly a billion dollars in consulting fees and disposed of FTX's high-quality assets at low prices, harming the interests of customers and creditors.
The prosecutor’s position and the difficulty of overturning the case
Can SBF overturn the case? It is generally considered to be difficult.
The first is the prosecutor's position. The authorities have previously pointed out that SBF not only misappropriated customer funds to subsidize its own hedge funds, but also concealed the true asset status in regulatory documents. Secondly, court records also show that FTX’s former chief operating officer Gary Wang and former CEO Caroline Ellison both testified that SBF was fully aware that it had misappropriated customer funds without authorization.
Finally, the duty of the appeals court is not to restart the factual investigation, but to examine whether there are legal errors. Therefore, legal scholars generally believe that the defense must prove that the initial trial process was "extremely unfair", otherwise the threshold for overturning the case will be very high.
