It's With a Heavy Heart I Report Sam Bankman-Fried's Weird Orgy Cult Girlfriend is Ratting on Him to the Authorities

Tom Williams. Getty Images.

It's real easy at the moment to hate on Sam Bankman-Fried. And to wish bad things happen to him without kindness and forgiveness in your heart. Even knowing that he's been denied parole, is likely going to spend Christmas in the Bahamian equivalent of the dungeon Cersei Lannister threw Tryion into, and his parents so far haven't seemed to be able to arrange vegan meals for him:

Though to be fair, let me remind all of FTX's former investors who lost all or some their life savings, Bankman-Fried didn't lost all their money. Just the funds he didn't lavishly spend on himself and his friends. I mean, sure, a lot of you are still going to trade your dreams of a secure, carefree retirement in for a smock with a name tag and spending 40 hours a week on your feet until the day you die. But it's not a total loss. At least someone got something out of the trust you put in him. 

No, with all due respect to FTX's clients, the one we really need to feel bad for is SBF himself. Losing your life savings is tough. Losing the love of your life - which is to say, one of the several loves of your life you enjoyed simultaneously - is much, much tougher. 

Just to coin a phrase no one has ever used before and copyright it so no one else can claim it, "Money can't buy you love." For sure, it can't buy you a love like the one Bankman-Fried enjoyed with Caroline Ellison of Alameda Research. Along with the dozen or so other people in their polyamory sex cult. Sadly though, that romantic relationship that seemed stressed by all these legal entanglements a few weeks ago:

… now appears to be kaput:

Source - Sam Bankman-Fried’s reported ex-girlfriend was likely among the first people to turn on him and help prosecutors build their fast-moving fraud case in the epic, $8 billion-plus collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, a former US government lawyer said Wednesday,

Caroline Ellison, 28, is a key figure in the case as she was at one time CEO of the Alameda Research hedge fund — which authorities claim received billions of dollars that Bankman-Fried, 30, diverted from FTX.

“She would have among the greatest incentives to cooperate, as it was seeming likely that in his effort to exculpate himself, Bankman-Fried would try to finger her,” former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer Howard Fischer told The Post. …

“For someone like Ellison who was in SBF’s inner circle and who has already publicly implicated herself, there is a strong incentive to cooperate early,” [former federal prosecutor Moira] Penza told The Post in an email.

I admit I'm a hopeless romantic, in love with Sam and Caroline's love story. Call me naive, but I truly believed that what these two crazy kids had would transcend a little thing like fraud on a massive scale. That you couldn't put a price tag on their relationship, not even one that says "$8 billion." That they'd stick together, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, in commitment-free group sex with people on the spectrum and Bahamian prison terms. I guess I was wrong. 

Maybe it's just the season, but I can't help seeing the parallels between this and the greatest movie ever made. George Bailey tried to help people achieve the American dream too. He was accused of Misappropriation of funds. Manipulation. Malfeasance. Federal officials came after him, too. He was looking at bankruptcy and scandal and prison. On Christmas no less. But no matter what host of troubles he faced, George still had Mary standing by his side. More than that. Running all around Bedford Falls getting the townspeople to help. Losing Caroline is like having Mary cut herself a deal with the bank examiners and tell them all about how George was giving money to Violet Bick and putting $8,000 in the hand of a drunk uncle so wet-brained he has to tie strings around his fingers to remember simple tasks, all so she can save herself and avoid prosecution. 

I'm sorry it's come to this for SBF. Truly, I am. But I am not going to let it destroy my faith in the power of love. Or of poly-amorous sex cults. I will, however, check the prospectuses on my Roth IRAs and 401Ks more carefully than I have been.