TechFlow news — FTX cryptocurrency exchange's former senior executive Ryan Salame requested on Wednesday that a New York federal judge void his previous guilty plea to campaign finance and money transmission crimes. In court filings, Salame's lawyers argued that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Manhattan had promised Salame and his legal team in April 2023 that if he pleaded guilty, they would halt their investigation into campaign finance violations by his domestic partner, Michelle Bond—a commitment made to secure Salame’s guilty plea in September of last year.
However, the lawyers stated, “the government failed to uphold its promise and recently resumed its investigation into Bond, now seeking to prosecute her.” Salame’s legal team is asking Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Kaplan to either vacate Salame’s guilty plea or compel prosecutors to honor their agreement not to charge Bond.
Salame was originally scheduled to begin serving a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence on October 13. He has also been ordered to pay over $6 million in fines and more than $5 million in restitution.
Notably, Salame was not a cooperating witness in the criminal investigation of FTX, but he testified during the autumn of last year at the criminal trial of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who has since been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Meanwhile, three other cooperating witnesses who testified at the trial—Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research; Nishad Singh, former FTX engineering head; and Gary Wang, FTX co-founder—are currently awaiting sentencing.
