'You Did the Right Thing': FTX Exec Nishad Singh Avoids Prison Time

Nishad Singh, once the chief engineer at collapsed crypto exchange FTX and a key deputy to co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, avoided a lengthy prison stay Wednesday when he was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release by a federal judge. He is now a free man.

Singh had been a key witness against Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for several fraud charges, and was also a key ally in helping recover funds and assets in bankruptcy proceedings. Late Tuesday, current FTX CEO John J. Ray III, a storied bankruptcy executive, urged leniency in a letter to the court citing a further need for Singh's help.

"You did the right thing, quickly," Judge Lewis Kaplan told Singh in court Wednesday, according to reporting by Matthew Russell Lee for Inner City Press. "Your cooperation has been remarkable. You are a very important cooperator. It has contributed to an appropriate outcome all around. Caroline Ellison got credit, but you deserve more."

Ellison, once the CEO of FTX's sister firm Alameda Research, was sentenced to two years in prison in September. She had also cooperated in the case against Bankman-Fried.

Singh, 29, initially joined Alameda in 2017. After FTX was founded in 2019, he quickly rose to become one of the crypto exchange’s top executives.

Amid FTX’s collapse in late 2022, Singh immediately began cooperating with law enforcement to produce evidence of his superiors’ conduct and private communications. Prosecutors commended his role in arming the case against Bankman-Fried as “exemplary.”

Ray, FTX’s current CEO and the shepherd of its bankruptcy proceedings, has characterized Singh’s assistance with that process as crucial, given the former FTX engineering director’s “extensive knowledge of FTX’s system and processes” and his “personal involvement in many key events and transactions.”

Singh currently lives in San Francisco with his fiancée, Claire Watanabe, another former FTX employee. According to his lawyers, he now works in artificial intelligence.

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.