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Chances increase dramatically if we cooperate in testifying against the perceived "mastermind", as Ms. Ellison did.

• jongjong 2y ago
  It seems flawed to assume that he was the mastermind, especially given the actual outcome. There is a lot of room for manipulation in the justice system in determining the hierarchy and who gets to be offered a sweet deal. Had Caroline been labeled by the media as 'the mastermind' and Sam as 'the help' by the media, the outcomes may have flipped. The media could totally construct a story where Sam was just the helpless front guy who knew nothing, misled as to the source of the money which Alameda Research was providing.
  • intuitionist 2y ago
    I think that would be an uphill battle. The money that flowed to Caroline looked like: a base salary of $200,000 a year, semiannual bonuses of up to $20 million, a de minimis equity stake in FTX, and no equity in Alameda. I don’t know what SBF’s salary or bonuses (if any) looked like, but he had a controlling stake in FTX, 90% of Alameda, and borrowed from his companies several times for hundreds of millions at a time. Caroline was nominally the CEO of Alameda but she clearly was not the one in charge of the corporate empire, and if she was masterminding the fraud she did a very poor job of monetizing it. It’s also not strictly he-said/she-said; there were at least two other executives who knew what was going on, both of whom implicated Sam as the mastermind.