Former FTX executive Ryan Salame, who pleaded guilty to two felony charges related to campaign finance and money-transmitting crimes in September 2023, is now seeking to withdraw his guilty plea.
On August 21, Salame asked a court to void his guilty plea, saying prosecutors broke their agreement not to investigate his fiancée, Michelle Bond, a former congressional candidate in 2022.
He says the government implied it would halt its investigation into Bond if he pled guilty.
In a filing on the same day, prosecutors urged the court to reject Salame’s petition and called it “legally meritless.” Instead, US attorney Damian Williams argues Salame is attempting “to evade his serious sentence for his involvement in an illegal campaign finance scheme that was unprecedented in scale.”
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan began investigating Salame and Bond in 2023 for potential campaign finance violations. The investigation has focused on funds Salame provided to Bond, a former Republican Congressional candidate, and the loans she used to finance her campaign.
In April 2023, authorities executed a search warrant at their $4 million Maryland mansion.
Salame, the former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison in May. He was the first co-conspirator of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to be sentenced.
Salame ‘self-serving’ tactics
Salame’s lawyers argue that the government should either dismiss charges against Bond or allow him to withdraw his guilty plea. “Yet the Government failed to abide by its word, recently resuming its investigation into Bond and pursuing an indictment against her,” Salame’s lawyers write in the filing.
He said on X that he was nervous about filing the petition but hoped it would encourage others to stand up against “un-American tactics.”
Prosecutors told the court it should reject Salame’s “shameless and self-serving attempt” to walk back his guilty pleas in the aftermath of his sentencing.
“Salame resorts to inaccurate, incomplete, and outright false assertions in an effort to evade his serious sentence,” Williams said in a court filing.
Williams said Salame misrepresented its statements regarding Bond.
In one meeting in May 2023, for example, prosecutors told Salame’s attorneys that a guilty plea “would not stop any ongoing investigation into Bond’s conduct,” William’s filing said.
Prosecutors asked the court to give them until September 6 to respond in full to Salame’s request.
Bankman-Fried’s Republican donator
During his time at FTX, Salame was often responsible for the then-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s chequebook, including securing premises in the Bahamas after the company moved from Hong Kong, according to Michael Lewis in his book “Going Infinite.”
When Bankman-Fried decided to move FTX from Hong Kong to the Bahamas, he sent Salame to snap up property for the company and its employees.
Salame became the Republican face of Bankman-Fried’s political donation efforts, sending money to various GOP candidates, including Bond, with whom he has a child.
He is due to begin serving his sentence in October.
Callan Quinn is an Asia Correspondent and Joanna Wright is a regulatory correspondent for DL News. Got a tip? Email them at callan@dlnews.com or joanna@dlnews.com.