Former congressional candidate Michelle Bond has been charged with allegedly conspiring in an unlawful campaign finance scheme operated by executives at an unnamed crypto exchange based in the Bahamas.
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the unsealing of Bond's indictment following back and forth between Bond's partner and former FTX executive Ryan Salame and prosecutors on whether she should be investigated.
Williams said Bond and Salame tried to fund her U.S. House of Representatives run "by illegally using hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate coffers," in a press release published on Thursday.
"Michelle Bond, a former congressional candidate, allegedly financed her campaign with illicitly obtained funds then made calculated efforts to conceal her misconduct, including lying to Congress about the deposits’ origin," FBI Acting Assistant Director Christie M. Curtis said in a statement.
Bond ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. House seat in in 2022 in New York's 1st district as a Republican. Soon after, prosecutors said Bond's romantic partner, who was a "high-level executive at a Bahamas-based subsidiary of a now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange," organized a "sham consulting agreement," between Bond and the exchange.
Through that agreement, Bond was paid $400,000 which she then allegedly used to unlawfully finance her campaign, according to the indictment on Thursday. Bond reported two $200,000 payments as "consulting income" in a 2022 financial disclosure form.
"However, in talking points BOND prepared for a meeting with the board of her Trade Group, BOND acknowledged that she did not work for the Exchange and that the Exchange gave the money for her campaign," prosecutors said.
Bond was charged with four counts including "conspiracy to cause unlawful campaign contributions" and "causing and accepting excessive campaign contributions." Each crime carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, according to the DOJ.
In addition to the alleged consulting fees, Bond's campaign also accepted thousands of dollars from the WinRed Super PAC backed by Salame. These payments were properly disclosed in her Federal Election Commission filings and are not part of the campaign finance fraud indictment. Salame, his parents and Bankman-Fried's father are also listed as donors.
Bond declined to comment on the indictment.
Salame's moves to block Bond's indictment
Over the past week Salame accused prosecutors of using plea negotiations to "threaten" his partner and mother of his eight-month old child, adding he plead guilty only on the promise that the government would drop its investigation of Bond. Salame moved to dismiss the indictment of his partner or, if not, overturn his conviction. Prosecutors say Salame's request is "factually baseless," in a response filed on Wednesday.
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Salame, who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in May, pleaded guilty in September 2023 to conspiring to make unlawful political contributions as well as conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. He worked closely with former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Bankman-Fried was sentenced in March to almost 25 years in prison following a criminal fraud trial late last year.
Prosecutors say they clearly laid out that Salame's guilty plea would not stop an investigation into Bond during a meeting in May 2023.
"As contemporaneous notes reflect, on that call the Government stated in substance and in part that in light of prior plea discussions, the Government 'wanted to make very clear that we view discussions of Michelle [Bond]/Ryan [Salame] as separate, a Ryan disposition will not resolve investigation of Michelle’s conduct, and to extent anything previously said was understood otherwise, that is superseded by this call,'" prosecutors said. "It was after this call that Salame entered a guilty plea."
Judge Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered Salame to file a reply to the government by Sept. 10 and said the court will hear the argument on Sept. 12.
The posts
Prosecutors also addressed Salame's social media posts since being sentenced in May. He has been active on X specifically over the last few months and has posted often about the government's case against Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives including Nishad Singh and Caroline Ellison.
The filing from the U.S. Attorney's Office listed some examples, including one from August 18 that read: "If you want to know how f*cked up our justice system is watch how little time Nishad and Caroline get after lying to save themselves.”
"Such behavior is of a piece with Salame’s other post-sentencing conduct, which has demonstrated a complete lack of remorse and utter contempt for the justice system, with public tweets," prosecutors said on Wednesday.
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