Ex-FTX executive spared prison sentence after cooperating against Sam Bankman-Fried

NEW YORK (AP) — An ex-FTX executive who testified against the cryptocurrency firm’s founder at his trial last year was spared a prison sentence Wednesday by a federal judge who credited his substantial cooperation and late arrival in the multibillion dollar fraud.

Nishad Singh, the company’s former engineering director, was sentenced in Manhattan by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who said his cooperation was “remarkable.”

The judge noted that Singh did not learn of the billions of dollars that were misappropriated from FTX customer accounts and investors until two months before the fraud unraveled.

FTX was one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, with celebrity endorsements and a 2022 Super Bowl advertisement before it collapsed into bankruptcy in November 2022. A month later, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas, where his companies were based, to face trial.

Singh, 29, testified a year ago at Bankman-Fried’s trial, saying he was “blindsided and horrified” when he saw the extent of the fraud behind the once-celebrated and seemingly pioneering firm.

At sentencing, Singh said he was “overwhelmed with remorse” for his role in the fraud.

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“I strayed so far from my values, and words can’t express how sorry I am,” he said.

Bankman-Fried was convicted last November and is serving a 25-year sentence.

The sentencing came a month after Caroline Ellison, another key witness at Bankman-Fried’s trial and a former top executive in his cryptocurrency empire, was sentenced to two years in prison. At the time, Kaplan praised her cooperation but said it wasn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card.

On Wednesday, Kaplan drew a distinction between the cooperation by Ellison and Singh’s work with prosecutors, saying Ellison had participated in the fraud “from the beginning” and had been aware of all the wrongdoing for years.

“She got plenty of credit for cooperation, but you deserve more,” he told Singh.

Prior to Singh’s sentence being announced, defense attorney Andrew Goldstein urged no prison time for his client, saying Singh did not know about the billions of dollars stolen from customers and investors until two months before FTX collapsed into bankruptcy in November 2022, just weeks before key executives were arrested.

Goldstein, a former longtime federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said leniency would encourage future cooperators in other criminal cases to come forward.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos credited Singh with providing information within weeks of the fraud being publicly revealed, saying he helped prosecutors learn about crimes they might otherwise have never discovered, including his own.

Roos said, for instance, that Singh told prosecutors about campaign finance violations that occurred as FTX executives made tens of millions of dollars in donations to political candidates.

The prosecutor also said Singh revealed private conversations with Bankman-Fried that strengthened the government’s case and enabled it to bring charges more quickly against multiple people.

Singh gave prosecutors “documentary evidence the government did not have and likely never would have had,” Roos said.