Michelle Bond, CEO of Digital Futures.
CNBC
Former prisoner convicted FTX operate Ryan Salamedomestic partners of Michelle Bond has been indicted in New York on federal charges that she conspired to illegally raise campaign funds from FTX for her unsuccessful 2022 congressional campaign, prosecutors announced Thursday.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams claims that Bond, 45, illegally funded her campaign with a “fake” upfront payment of $400,000 from FTX, followed by annual payments of $100,000 from the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange.
Bond is running for a House seat in New York’s first congressional district, which includes eastern Long Island.
Bond, who lives in Potomac, Maryland, is scheduled to appear in Manhattan federal court on Thursday.
Four digits indictment has been unsealed one day later Salame, the father of Bond’s eight-month-old child, asked a New York federal judge to throw out his guilty pleas to campaign finance and wire fraud charges.
Salame’s attorneys claim prosecutors reneged on a deal to drop the campaign finance investigation into Bond as an inducement to get him to plead guilty.
Bond is a lawyer based in or near Washington who “has always been involved in the indictment,” working as the CEO of a digital asset trading group, the indictment says. In June, Bond also announced the launch of Digital Future, a team “dedicated to advancing the development of the next generation of financial services,” according to a press release.
Ryan Salame, former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, leaves Federal Court after pleading guilty to two charges including conspiracy to make illegal political contributions to the United States, in New York City, September 7, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
According to the indictment, Salame and Bond met in June 2021 and began a relationship early the following year.
The indictment alleges that Salame, identified only as CC-1, conspired with Bond to commit the crimes, saying Salame arranged for the payment from FTX to Bond. She then allegedly used “substantially all” of that money “to illegally fund her campaign,” the indictment says.
According to the indictment, between June and August 2022, Salame allegedly transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars into Bond’s personal bank account, which she then used to illegally fund her campaign.
Salame was not a cooperating witness in last year’s criminal trial of his former boss at FTX, Sam Bankman-Friedwho was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy.
The charges against Salame stem from his involvement in a multimillion-dollar campaign finance scheme during his time at FTX.
Salame will face a seven-and-a-half year prison sentence. prison sentence on October 13. Salame also ordered to pay over $6 million in forfeiture and over $5 million in restitution.
Williams, the US Attorney, wrote a separate letter to the judge in his criminal case on Wednesday asking the court to “reject Ryan Salame’s shameless and selfish attempt to refuse to plead guilty after his sentencing.”
Judge Lewis Kaplan has set a hearing for September 12 to hear arguments from both sides on whether to void the agreement Salame signed with prosecutors.
— CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.
