Ex-FTX Co-CEO Salame Sentenced to 7.5 Years Amid Fraud Charges
Summary:
Ryan Salame, the former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO, has been sentenced to 7.5 years in prison by a US federal court for participating in an illegal money transmission business and election finance fraud. Prosecutors suggested a maximum seven-year term for Salame’s misuse of FTX funds and fraud related to his girlfriend's Congressional campaign. Following his guilty plea, Salame is expected to pay around $6 million each to US authorities and FTX debtors and forfeit two properties and a business.
Ryan Salame, the ex-deputy chief of FTX Digital Markets, has recently been given a 7.5-year prison term by a federal court following his admission of guilt to two serious offences. Judge Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in a legal proceeding on May 28, demanded that Salame be incarcerated for 7.5 years due to his involvement in an illegal money transmission business and election finance deceit.
Salame declared his guilt to these crimes in September 2023 and has been awaiting his penalty since then. Just two days prior to Sam Bankman-Fried's resignation as CEO and the company's bankruptcy declaration, Salame blew the whistle on FTX's deceptive activities to the Bahamian Security Commission on November 9, 2022. Bankman-Fried was subsequently seized in the Bahamas and delivered to the U.S, where he was found guilty on seven felony charges, with Judge Kaplan ordering a 25-year jail term in March.
Salame was proposed a maximum of seven years' imprisonment by the prosecuting attorneys for his involvement in exploiting FTX client funds and fraudulent donations to his girlfriend Michelle Bond’s Congressional campaign. His legal team proposed an 18-month jail term, justifying that he was on the "lowest level of the admitted conspiracy" and was not expected to replicate such offenses.
Salame, being the second person affiliated with FTX and Alameda Research to be incarcerated after Bankman-Fried, was followed by former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, ex-FTX engineering head Nishad Singh, and FTX co-originator Gary Wang who all confessed to crimes and gave evidence in Bankman-Fried's felony trial. Their sentencing dates were not declared at the time of the report’s delivery.
Since his confession and subsequent release on $1 million bail, Salame has mostly been allowed to travel freely. Under his agreement with the prosecuting team, he is obligated to hand over an estimated $6 million each to the U.S. authorities and FTX creditors, and also to relinquish two properties and one business. His lawyers claimed he would be asset-less after surrendering possessions worth millions in 2022 during the confiscation proceedings. A court document from May 27 indicated that Salame might keep a 2021 Porsche as the car did "not have enough equity to justify additional seizure processes."
Additional details will be provided about this ongoing case as more information is made available.
Published At
5/28/2024 7:01:12 PM
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