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Former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets Ryan Salameh pleaded guilty to two charges, including conspiracy to make illegal U.S. political contributions, in New York City on September 7, 2023, and was released from federal court.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
Ryan Salameh, the cohabiting partner of convicted ex-FTX executive Michelle Bond Prosecutors announced Thursday that he was indicted on federal charges in New York state for conspiring to raise illegal campaign contributions from FTX following an unsuccessful run for Congress in 2022.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damien Williams alleges that Bond, 45, illegally funded his campaign by taking a “sham” $400,000 upfront payment from FTX and then receiving $100,000 annually from the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange.
Bond was running for Congress in New York’s 1st Congressional District, which includes eastern Long Island.
Bond, a resident of Potomac, Maryland, is scheduled to appear in Manhattan federal court on Thursday.
4 Counts Indictment The documents were made public the day after Salameh, the father of Bond’s 8-month-old child, asked a New York federal court to vacate his guilty plea to campaign finance and money transfer violations.
Salameh’s lawyers argue that prosecutors reneged on an agreement to drop an investigation into Bond’s campaign finances as an inducement to get Bond to plead guilty.
According to the indictment, Bond is an attorney based in or near Washington and served as CEO of a digital asset trading entity “at all times relevant to the indictment.”
According to the indictment, Salameh and Bond met in June 2021 and began dating early the following year.
The indictment alleges that Salameh, who identifies himself only as CC-1, conspired with Bond to commit the crimes, arranging for payments from FTX to Bond, who then allegedly used “substantially all” of the money “to illegally fund his election campaign.”
According to the indictment, Salameh is accused of transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bond’s personal bank account between June and August 2022 and using it as illegal funds for his own election campaign.
Salameh was a non-cooperating witness in last year’s criminal trial of former FTX boss Sam Bankman Freed, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March on fraud and conspiracy charges.
The allegations against Salameh stem from his involvement in a multi-million dollar campaign finance scheme while at FTX.
Salameh is due to begin serving his seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence on October 13. was ordered to pay The amount of forfeiture is more than $6 million, and restitution is more than $5 million.
U.S. Attorney Williams sent a separate letter Wednesday to the judge overseeing the criminal case, urging the court to “reject Ryan Salameh’s brazen and self-serving attempt to withdraw his guilty plea after sentencing.”
Judge Lewis Kaplan scheduled a hearing for Sept. 12 to hear arguments from both sides on whether to vacate the agreement Salameh made with prosecutors.
In June, Bond announced the launch of Digital Future, a think tank aimed at driving the next generation of developments in the financial services industry. press release.
— CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.
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