Michelle Bond, CEO of Digital Futures.
CNBC
Convicted former FTX executive Ryan Salame’s domestic partner Michelle Bond has been indicted in New York on federal charges accusing her of conspiring to raise unlawful campaign contributions from FTX for her unsuccessful run for Congress in 2022, prosecutors announced Thursday.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams claims that Bond, 45, illegally funded her campaign with a “sham” $400,000 upfront payment from FTX, followed by a $100,000 annual payment from that now-bankrupt crypto exchange.
Bond, who lives in Potomac, Maryland, was running for a House seat in New York’s first congressional district, which includes eastern Long Island.
Salame and Bond met in June 2021, and were in a relationship by early the following year, according to the indictment.
The indictment alleges that Salame, identified only as CC-1, conspired with Bond to commit the crimes, saying that Salame arranged the payment from FTX to Bond. She then allegedly used “almost entirely” all of that money “to fund her campaign illegally,” the indictment says.
Salame between June and August 2022 allegedly wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bond’s personal bank account, which she then also put toward illegally funding her campaign, according to the indictment.
The four-count indictment was unsealed a day after Salame, the father of Bond’s eight-month-old child, asked a New York federal judge to void his guilty plea to campaign finance and money-transmitting crimes.
Salame’s lawyers claim prosecutors reneged on an agreement to drop their campaign finance probe of Bond as an incentive to get him to plead guilty.
Bond was an attorney based in or near Washington who, “at all times relevant to the indictment,” worked as the CEO of a digital assets trade group, the indictment says. In June, Bond also announced the launch of Digital Future, a think tank “dedicated to promoting the development of the next generation of the financial services industry,” according to a press release.
“The indictment includes a number of revealing text messages and emails, which, when coupled with the bank records, paint a compelling picture that Bond attempted to circumvent the campaign finance rules and cover it up,” said Baker Botts partner Sterling Marchand, who guides clients on federal and state political and election law.
“Salame alleges that the Government implicitly promised to not further investigate Bond. But the indictment today shows a very strong case against Bond – as I’m sure the Government intended to convey,” continued Marchand.
She was released on a $1 million personal recognizance bond co-signed by another individual and was seen leaving the courthouse in lower Manhattan hand-in-hand with Salame earlier Thursday afternoon.
Ryan Salame, the former co-chief executive of FTX Digital Markets, exits the Federal Court after he pleaded guilty to two charges including conspiring to make unlawful U.S. political contributions, in New York City, Sept. 7, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Salame was not a cooperating witness in last year’s criminal trial of his former boss at FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy.
The charges against Salame stemmed from his involvement in a multimillion-dollar campaign finance scheme during his tenure at FTX.
Salame is due to begin serving a 7-and-a-half-year prison sentence on Oct. 13. Salame also was ordered to pay more than $6 million in forfeiture and more than $5 million in restitution.
Williams, the U.S. Attorney, separately wrote to the judge in his criminal case on Wednesday to ask that the court “reject Ryan Salame’s shameless and self-serving attempt to renege on his guilty plea in the aftermath of his sentencing.”
Judge Lewis Kaplan set a hearing for Sept. 12 to hear arguments from both sides on whether to toss out the deal Salame struck with the prosecutors.
— CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.
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