Ryan Salame, former CEO of FTX Digital Markets, said he had nothing to do with the massive fraud that lost exchange customers worth more than $10 billion. His “best friend” Sam Trabucco, who once headed Alameda Research, attests to this. writing.
In a court filing Tuesday, Salameh’s lawyers argued that their client was “not part of Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle” who knew about the fraud at the center of the case. They compiled letters from Salame’s friends and family attesting to his “generous” and “caring” nature.
“To put it simply, Ryan is my best friend,” Trabbuco wrote in a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan. “That person also committed a crime. “He has acknowledged this and is ready to accept the consequences.”
Last September, Salameh became one of many FTX leaders to sign a plea deal with the Department of Justice (DOJ) following the company’s downfall, forfeiting $1.5 billion in the process. But the guilty plea involved campaign finance violations rather than fraud, and Trabuco said his friend’s punishment should fairly reflect that.
“Ryan does not deserve to be defined by his worst actions,” he said. “He’s not a one-dimensional villain, he’s a complex person who makes mistakes.”
Troy Tsui, another friend and former colleague of Salame’s at Alameda Research, endorsed Salame’s “basically decent” personality. Another letter from his mom and dad said, “At his core, Ryan strives to be a catalyst for good in the lives of others.”
The lawyers noted that beyond Salame’s character, even Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research and Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend, testified during the latter’s fraud trial that she “conspired to keep Ryan secret about the fraud.”
While testifying against his former partner on the witness stand, Ellison said he “knew FTX couldn’t cover all the withdrawals” during the week of FTX’s collapse. But Bankman-Fried instructed her to tell Salame, “It’s already growing in size, but we could come across something huge.”
Salame’s legal team also cited a letter from the Bahamas Securities Commission saying he was the first person to notify the commission that FTX’s client assets had been transferred to Alameda Research.
“The committee understood Mr. Salameh’s advice that such transfers were impermissible and may therefore constitute misappropriation, theft, fraud or other offences,” the committee said. According to Salame, the only people with the authority to move those funds were Bankman-Fried, engineering director Nishad Singh and FTX co-founder Gary Wang.
“For the reasons stated above, a prison sentence of not more than 18 months is sufficient,” Salame’s lawyers concluded.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 28.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
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