U.S. Attorney's Office: Opposes Former FTX Executive's Revocation of Plea Agreement

Author: Turner Wright, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Wuzhu, Golden Finance

The U.S. Attorney’s Office opposes former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame’s petition to vacate his plea agreement for campaign finance violations.

In a filing on August 26 with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, prosecutors said they would file written opposition to the petition filed by Salame’s legal team by September 4. The former FTX executive’s lawyers filed a petition for a writ of error in an attempt to have the court overturn Salame’s plea agreement, which resulted in his being sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

The former FTX executive’s lawyers filed a petition for a writ of error in an attempt to have the court overturn Salame’s plea agreement, which resulted in him being sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

Salame claims prosecutors hinted during his plea negotiations that they would not investigate his partner, Michelle Bond, who was unsealed on Aug. 22 as part of an indictment alleging campaign finance violations in his 2022 run for a U.S. House seat. “Salame’s complaint is premised on the (patently false) allegation that he was induced to plead guilty because the government said that in exchange for his guilty plea it would drop its investigation into Bond’s conspiracy with Salame to commit criminal campaign finance violations,” the filing states.

Source: SDNY

Bond, who was Salame’s partner during the collapse of FTX, ran for Congress in New York’s First Congressional District in 2022. Her candidacy did not continue in the Republican primary, losing to Nicholas J. LaLota by about 5,000 votes. The indictment alleges that Bond and Salame conspired to embezzle funds from her campaign for Congress.

FTX Goes to Trial

In September 2023, Salame pleaded guilty to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and engaging in campaign finance fraud. In May, a federal judge sentenced him to 90 months in prison. Salame requested a stay due to medical complications following a dog bite and is scheduled to go to prison on October 13.

If the judge accepts Salame's request to void his plea agreement and sentence, he could face a full criminal trial in the future. His agreement with prosecutors requires him to pay a fine of approximately $6 million to the government and $6 million to FTX debtors.

Salame is listed in the same indictment as Sam "SBF" Bankman-Fried, the only party who did not testify in the trial of the former FTX CEO. Former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh and co-founder Gary Wang accepted plea deals to testify at SBF’s trial and are scheduled to be sentenced in October and November, respectively.

Since his sentencing, Salame has remained active on X, posting allegations against FTX executives, including former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison. Salame has claimed, without clear evidence, that Ellison is “more guilty than SBF.”

In March, a judge sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison. His legal team has filed a notice of appeal. As of the time of publication, Ellison’s sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.