Alameda chief executive Caroline Ellison told her staff that Sam Bankman-Fried authorised a raid on FTX customer money to repay the trading firm’s loans, according to recordings of an employee meeting from the company’s final days played in court on Thursday.
“I’m sure this wasn’t just a Yolo thing,” Alameda software developer Christian Drappi said to Ellison, using the acronym for “you only live once”, as he pressed her for details of who had prior knowledge of the scheme to secretly pay Alameda’s debts with FTX customer money.
The grainy audio files were among the most keenly anticipated evidence in Bankman-Fried’s federal criminal trial. Prosecutors hope the tape will show the jury that Ellison told the same story about the alleged fraud even before she pleaded guilty and began co-operating with the government against her former boss and on-again, off-again boyfriend.