Former FTX engineering director, Nishad Singh, who admitted guilt and cooperated with authorities, has provided significant assistance to the United States government, prompting prosecutors to request leniency from Judge Lewis Kaplan during sentencing. This was stated in a filing on October 23 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York by US Attorney Damian Williams. Singh, who pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges in 2023, is set to appear before the judge on October 30.
Prosecutors claim that Singh’s testimony during the trial of former FTX CEO, Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, played a crucial role in the government’s case. Singh helped the jury understand how FTX’s code enabled the illegal use of customers’ funds and provided detailed information about Bankman-Fried’s transactions involving stolen money. The filing appears to place much of the blame for FTX’s collapse on Bankman-Fried’s actions, in which Singh was often unwittingly involved.
According to Williams, Singh cooperated with genuine remorse and eagerness to assist. He began meeting with the government soon after FTX’s collapse, provided Signal messages that would have otherwise been inaccessible, and spent considerable time reviewing documents and FTX’s code to identify key evidence used during the trial.
The filing also raises the question of whether this cooperation marks the beginning of the end for FTX’s criminal cases. Singh pleaded guilty to six felony charges in February 2023, including wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and unlawful political contributions. He, along with former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, who also pleaded guilty, testified during Bankman-Fried’s trial in October 2023.
Bankman-Fried has already been sentenced to 25 years in prison, but his lawyers have filed an appeal. Salame, the former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, has been sentenced to 90 months in prison. It remains uncertain whether Judge Kaplan will grant Singh’s lawyers’ request for time served or impose a harsher penalty. Prosecutors have also acknowledged Ellison’s cooperation in the prosecution of Bankman-Fried, but she still received a two-year prison sentence.
Wang, who pleaded guilty to similar charges, is scheduled to be sentenced on November 20. If sentenced, he will be the last individual involved in the FTX indictment to face prison time, more than two years after the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.