Bankman-Fried’s ‘Blame Ellison’ Defense Undercut by Wang (1)

Sam Bankman-Fried for weeks seemed to be trying to get ahead of former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison’s widely expected cooperation deal with prosecutors, subtly casting blame on her for FTX’s collapse.

But when Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams finally announced Ellison’s plea agreement Wednesday night, it came with a brutal stinger for Bankman-Fried: federal prosecutors also had a deal with Gary Wang,his FTX co-founder. Wang was far more integral to FTX than Ellison, making him a more dangerous witness for Bankman-Fried.

Sam Bankman-Fried departs from court in New York on Thursday, Dec. 22

Photographer: Stephen Yang/Bloomberg

Bankman-Fried, 30, is charged with orchestrating a yearslong fraud in which he used billions of ...