U.S. prosecutors seek 5 to 7 years in prison for former FTX executive

U.S. prosecutors want Ryan Salame, a former FTX executive believed to be a close associate of FTX co-founder Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, to be sentenced to five to seven years in prison for crimes that led to the ultimate collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

On May 21, federal prosecutors filed a sentencing memo in Manhattan federal court calling for a stiff sentence for Salameh after he pleaded guilty to committing “serious crimes” related to misappropriating FXT investors’ funds.

In court documents seen by Bloomberg, U.S. prosecutors called for a “just punishment” commensurate with the scale of Salameh’s crimes, arguing that he should serve no more than 18 months.

The prosecution said this:

“Campaign finance crime is one of the largest crimes in American history, with unlicensed money transfer operations exchanging more than $1 billion without proper oversight.”

Salameh’s court sentencing for helping SBF embezzle $10 billion in user funds is currently scheduled for May 28. “Only a meaningful period of imprisonment can adequately deter defendants and others and promote respect for the law,” prosecutors added.

On April 1, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York sentenced SBF to 25 years in prison after finding him guilty on seven felony counts. Salame will be SBF’s first accomplice to be sentenced.

Salame began working at Alameda Research in Hong Kong in 2019 and later rose through the corporate ranks to become CEO of FTX Digital Markets, an FTX subsidiary based in the Bahamas.

Other high-profile figures behind the FTX scam – Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang – have yet to be sentenced.

Related: SBF claims innocence while trading rice in prison

According to North Carolina Rep. Wiley Nickel, a number of U.S. lawmakers are supporting legislation that aims to clarify the role of state financial regulators when it comes to digital assets to “prevent the next FTX.”

Nickel urged lawmakers to support passage of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century (FIT21) Act, legislation that would clarify how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission would regulate cryptocurrencies.

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