Former FTX Exec Salame Says Feds Not Honoring Plea Deal

Last year former FTX executive Ryan Salame cut a deal with federal prosecutors.

Now, Salame says the government is not holding up its end of the bargain, and is asking a judge to enforce his plea deal.

According to court records, Salame’s deal would have stopped a government probe into his partner, cryptocurrency think tank CEO Michelle Bond, who is under investigation for campaign finance violations tied to a failed run for Congress in 2022.

Salame — who had been FTX’s co-CEO for its operation in the Bahamas — pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in 2023, and was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison.

“Yet despite Salame’s cooperation,” the filing says, “The Government failed to honor its implied commitment not to pursue the campaign-finance charges against Bond.”

The filing claims prosecutors “used the plea negotiations to threaten Salame’s domestic partner and the mother of his child, Michelle Bond,” and that the government conveyed it “would discontinue investigating Bond if Salame pleaded guilty.”

PYMNTS has contacted the U.S. Justice Department for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

Salame’s attorneys are now asking the court either enforce the prosecution’s original promise to end the federal investigation into Bond or vacate Salame’s conviction.

The filing was first reported Thursday (Aug. 22) by Coindesk, which also notes that Salame has posted on X that he hopes his court filing “encourages more people to be honest and tell the truth and expose un-American tactics.”

“I hope it helps at least one person in the future; the justice system is fragile but so important,” he wrote.

Salame was sentenced to his prison term in May, with the judge handing down a slightly harsher sentence than the seven years prosecutors had sought (and a much harsher term than the six months his attorneys had hoped for).

The former executive had been the key point man behind FTX’s political donation machine, purportedly spending $24 million, and was known for his close ties to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried — now serving his own decades-long prison term — during his time with the fallen crypto exchange.

During Salame’s trial, his lawyers tried to distance him from the fraud that happened at FTX, saying that he was tricked into thinking that the companies were legitimate.

Meanwhile, two other former FTX executives have yet to be sentenced. Nishad Singh, the company’s ex-engineering director, is due to be sentenced Oct. 30 while co-founder Gary Wang will be sentenced on Nov. 20.

Both men, who have pleaded guilty, cooperated with the prosecution and testified against Bankman-Fried at trial.