Michelle Bond, the wife of former FTX executive Ryan Salame, will face illicit campaign finance charges after a judge rejected her argument that prosecutors promised Salame that she would be cleared if he pleaded guilty.
Manhattan federal judge George Daniels on Wednesday denied Bond’s bid to dismiss an indictment that alleged she illegally took money from the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX to help bankroll her unsuccessful run for Congress in 2022.
Daniels wrote there was “no ambiguity” in the terms of Salame’s written plea agreement. “As the evidence made clear, all parties, including the defendants and their counsel, were aware that the Government had not promised Bond’s immunity by the time Salame entered his guilty plea,” he said.
FTX’s high-profile collapse in 2022 shook the cryptocurrency industry. The order could set up the last of the criminal trials tied to FTX, closing a chapter on one of crypto’s biggest blowups in history.
Michelle Bond (left) and Ryan Salame (right) leaving a Manhattan courthouse in August 2024. Source: YouTube
Salame, who was the co-CEO of FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary, FTX Digital Markets, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in May 2024 after pleading guilty to conspiring to make illegal political contributions and operating an illegal money transmitter.
Bond claimed that then-Manhattan US Attorney Danielle Sassoon told her and Salame’s lawyer in a 2023 meeting that “without making promises outside the four corners of the plea agreement,” if Salame pleaded guilty, then prosecutors would “conclude the aspects of our investigation that concern RS (Ryan Salame), but not SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried).”
However, Daniels wrote that the evidence “undisputably indicates that the Government did not promise to not prosecute Bond in exchange for Salame’s guilty plea.”
He added that Bond’s former lawyer, Gina Parlovecchio, “admitted as much under oath — testifying that, regardless of what discussions were had, she did not believe Sassoon’s statement was a promise at the time it was made.”
Prosecutors first alleged in August 2024 that after Bond launched a bid for a House seat in 2022, Salame orchestrated a consulting agreement between Bond and FTX, where she was paid $400,000.
Related: US lawmakers warn against presidential pardon for Sam Bankman-Fried
The government alleges Bond then used those funds to illegally finance her congressional campaign, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional funds that Salame wired to her between June and August 2022.
Prosecutors claimed that Bond attempted to conceal the source of the payments and made false statements to a congressional committee and the Federal Election Commission.
Bond is facing charges of conspiring to cause unlawful political contributions, causing and receiving a straw donor contribution, along with causing and accepting excessive campaign contributions and an unlawful corporate contribution.
Each of the four charges Bond is facing carries a maximum of five years in prison.
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