A US attorney has charged Michelle Bond, a former Republican congressional candidate and the fiancée of ex-FTX executive Ryan Salame, with conspiring to make illegal campaign contributions during her 2022 bid for Congress.
Bond faces three charges including conspiracy to make illegal campaign contributions, accepting excessive donations, and receiving illegal corporate and straw contributions. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison — 15 years in total.
Bond funnelled hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate funds and other sources to finance her campaign, according to Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
She then allegedly covered up the illicit activity by lying to Congress and other authorities.
The charges come after Salame petitioned a court to void his guilty plea earlier this week, claiming prosecutors violated their agreement by continuing to investigate Bond.
Salame, who was sentenced in May to seven and a half years behind bars for violating campaign finance law and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, says the government implied it would stop probing Bond if he pleaded guilty.
Prosecutors, however, have rejected Salame’s petition, calling it “legally meritless.” Williams stated that Salame is attempting to avoid his sentence for what he described as a “campaign finance scheme unprecedented in scale.”
Salame is set to begin serving his sentence in October.
The charges represent the latest chapter in the saga of the $11 billion collapse of the FTX crypto exchange in November 2022.
The scandal saw founder Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison in March. Other executives like Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang all await sentencing.
The indictment
Bond launched her campaign for New York’s First Congressional District in May 2022.
At the time, she was the CEO of trade group the Association for Digital Asset Markets, while Salame was an executive at FTX’s Bahamas-based subsidiary.
Shortly after the launch, Salame allegedly arranged a fraudulent $400,000 consulting agreement between Bond and FTX. Bond used these funds, along with additional wire transfers from Salame, to illegally finance her campaign, according to the indictment.
Between June and August 2022, Salame also wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bond’s personal bank account, according to the indictment.
Bond concealed her actions by making false statements to a congressional committee, the Federal Election Commission, and her employer, prosecutors claim.
In her House Ethics Committee disclosure, she reported the $400,000 FTX payment as consulting income, while her internal notes indicated that the funds were intended to support her campaign.
Bond launched her pro-crypto think tank Digital Future in June and has been a staunch supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Callan Quinn is an Asia Correspondent for DL News. Got a tip? Email her at callan@dlnews.com.