Former Congressional Candidate Charged with Illegal Use of FTX Cash to Fund Failed Campaign

The U.S. Department of Justice today indicted former FTX executive Ryan Salameh’s partner and former congressional candidate Michelle Bond for campaign finance violations.

The agency alleged on Thursday that Bond, 45, received $400,000 from FTX through a fake consulting contract arranged by Salameh, which illegally funded Bond’s failed 2022 congressional bid. Bond was campaigning to represent New York’s first congressional district.

Just yesterday, Salame I asked They asked a U.S. judge to block Bond’s prosecution and reconsider his conviction.

Salame is I was sentenced He was sentenced to 90 months in prison in May for conspiring to make illegal political contributions and defrauding the Federal Election Commission. He was the CEO of FTX Digital Markets, a Bahamian subsidiary of a criminally controlled cryptocurrency exchange that went bankrupt in 2022.

“Michelle Bond and her co-conspirators allegedly illegally used hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate treasuries and other sources to fund a U.S. House of Representatives election campaign, and then lied to Congress and others to cover it all up,” Damien Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

According to the indictment, the charges include one count of conspiracy to solicit illegal campaign contributions, one count of soliciting and receiving excessive campaign contributions, one count of soliciting and receiving illegal corporate contributions, and one count of soliciting and receiving conduit contributions.

FTX, once one of the most well-known brands in the cryptocurrency space, unexpectedly went bankrupt November 2022. Co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said: Get arrested, Charged and He was later imprisoned. He faces up to 25 years in prison for fraud and illegally managing an exchange.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.