What to expect at Nishad Singh’s sentencing hearing

On Oct. 30, almost two years after cryptocurrency exchange FTX experienced a liquidity crisis and filed for bankruptcy, former engineering director Nishad Singh will stand before a judge in a New York courtroom and await sentencing for his crimes.

After FTX collapsed in 2022, US prosecutors indicted Singh and four of his colleagues for charges that included fraud and campaign finance violations.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, the public face of the exchange and allegedly the most culpable in its downfall, went to trial after pleading not guilty. He was later sentenced to 25 years in prison — the first to face the consequences of his actions.

However, the court took months to address guilty pleas from Singh, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, and former FTX Digital Markets — the exchange’s arm in the Bahamas — co-CEO Ryan Salame. All eventually pleaded guilty and, with the exception of Salame, testified at Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial.

In September, a judge sentenced Ellison, likely the second most high-profile individual named in the indictment, to two years in prison, where she is scheduled to report in November. Salame, sentenced to 90 months, initially sought to have his guilty plea withdrawn but reported to a federal facility on Oct. 11.

Prison or time served?

Singh and Wang are the final two dominoes in criminal cases involving executives at FTX and Alameda, and it’s unclear how a judge will interpret their cooperation with prosecutors when considering sentencing guidelines.

The former FTX engineering director pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions.

Before Ellison’s sentencing hearing, prosecutors cited her “extraordinary cooperation” in helping convict Bankman-Fried, whom she briefly dated. The court filing also detailed the former CEO’s intense scrutiny by the media, including one news outlet that published her private journals after Bankman-Fried provided them. Judge Lewis Kaplan still sentenced Ellison to two years behind bars. 

Related: In prison and awaiting sentencing — Where are the FTX execs now?

Like Ellison, Singh’s lawyers have requested the former FTX engineering director be sentenced to time served. Prosecutors made no specific request for the amount of time he may or may not spend in prison but asked a judge to consider his assistance in Bankman-Fried’s trial, helping the government “identify key pieces of evidence.”

“This is a full-throated request for a downward departure for Singh, but I don’t know if his cooperation was quite as valuable as Ellison’s,” Mark Bini, a former assistant US attorney in the Eastern District of New York, told Cointelegraph. “His defense attorneys have made out the position that he’s less culpable.”

Bini speculated that Singh would receive “about three years” in prison given the differences in his case with the former Alameda CEO’s:

“I think [Singh] is going to get a little bit more [time] than Caroline Ellison […] Ellison was really in the misappropriation crime — she knew about that — while as Singh, while he may have had less knowledge of the misappropriation crime, he also knew about this campaign finance violation.”

Pending cases with crypto execs

Wang, who pleaded guilty to similar fraud charges — but not violations of campaign finance law — is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 20 for his sentencing hearing. At the time of publication, his lawyers had not filed a recommendation memo in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Though Bankman-Fried is serving his sentence, he will likely remain in a New York-based facility to assist in his own defense at appeal. In September, his lawyers appealed the former FTX CEO’s conviction and sentence in the Second Circuit, claiming he was “never presumed innocent” at trial.

Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky, who last appeared in court in February to address a potential conflict of interest with his legal team, is scheduled to return for a Nov. 13 hearing. His criminal trial is set to begin in January 2025. 

Magazine: ‘Less flashy’ Mashinsky set for less jail time than SBF: Inner City Press, X Hall of Flame