U.S. prosecutors in New York waited until Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX, was in FBI custody before revealing that his business partners, Carolyn Ellison and Gary Wang, had secretly pleaded guilty to fraud charges and were cooperating in the investigation, which can earn them leniency at sentencing.At that hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon told the judge prosecutors had expected Bankman-Fried to consent to extradition Monday before there were “some hiccups in the Bahamian courtroom.”“We’re still expecting extradition soon, but given that he has not yet entered his consent, we think it could potentially thwart our law enforcement objectives to extradite him if Ms. Ellison’s cooperation were disclosed at this time,” Sassoon told U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams.“Exposure of cooperation could hinder law enforcement officials’ ability to continue the ongoing investigation and, in addition, may affect Mr. Bankman-Fried’s decision to waive extradition in this case,” Abrams said.In court Monday, Ellison said since FTX and Alameda collapsed in November, she has “worked hard to assist with the recovery of assets for the benefit of customers and to cooperate with the government’s investigation.”“I am truly sorry for what I did.“I also understood that many FTX customers invested in crypto derivatives and that most FTX customers did not expect that FTX would lend out their digital asset holdings and … deposits to Alameda in this fashion.”From July to October, Ellison said, she agreed with Bankman-Fried and others to provide misleading financial statements to Alameda’s lenders, including quarterly balance sheets that concealed the extent of the company’s borrowing and the billions of dollars in loans it had made to FTX executives and others."