NEW YORK – A former FTX executive who testified against the cryptocurrency firm’s founder at his trial last year was spared prison time Wednesday by a federal judge who credited him with his significant cooperation and late involvement in a multibillion-dollar fraud.

Nishad Singh, the company’s former engineering manager, was sentenced in Manhattan by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who said his cooperation was “remarkable.”

The judge noted that Singh was not aware of billions of dollars being embezzled from FTX customer accounts and investors until two months before the fraud was revealed.

FTX was one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges with celebrity support and a 2022 Super Bowl ad before it collapsed into bankruptcy in November 2022. A month later, the FTX founder said, Sam Bankman-Fried He was extradited for trial from the Bahamas, where his companies are located.

Singh, 29, testified at Bankman-Fried’s trial a year ago and said he was “blindsided and appalled” when he saw the extent of fraud behind the once famous and seemingly pioneering firm.

In handing down the sentence, Singh said he was “regretful” for his role in the fraud.

“I have strayed so far from my values ​​that I cannot express in words how sorry I am,” he said.

Bankman-Fried (previous value) was sentenced last November and is serving a 25-year sentence.

The sentence came a month after Caroline Ellison, another key witness in Bankman-Fried’s trial and a former top executive at the cryptocurrency empire, was sentenced to two years in prison. At the time, Kaplan praised his cooperation but said it wasn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Kaplan on Wednesday drew a distinction between Ellison’s cooperation and Singh’s work with prosecutors, saying Ellison participated in the fraud “from the very beginning” and had been aware of all the inaccuracies for years.

“He’s earned a lot of credit for cooperation, but you deserve more,” he told Singh.

Before Singh’s sentence was announced, defense attorney Andrew Goldstein urged that his client not be sentenced to prison, saying Singh did not know about billions of dollars stolen from customers and investors until just a few weeks before two months before FTX was plunged into bankruptcy in November 2022. executives were arrested.

Goldstein, a longtime federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said leniency would encourage future co-conspirators to come forward in other criminal cases.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos said Singh provided information within weeks of the fraud being made public, helping prosecutors obtain information about crimes they would otherwise never have discovered, including his own.

Roos said Singh, for example, told prosecutors about campaign finance violations that occurred because FTX executives donated tens of millions of dollars to political candidates.

The prosecutor also said Singh uncovered private conversations with Bankman-Fried that strengthened the government’s case and enabled it to more quickly bring charges against multiple people.

Roos said Singh gave prosecutors “documentary evidence that the government does not have and probably never will.”