Former FTX Executive Ryan Salame Claims Government Backtracked on Plea Deal: Filing

• Former FTX executive Ryan Salame is arguing in a court filing that the government is not keeping its part of a deal.
• The deal involved ceasing an investigation into possible campaign finance violations by Michelle Bond, Salame's domestic partner.

Attorneys for Ryan Salame, the former FTX executive sentenced to 7.5 years in prison, are asking a court to enforce a plea deal between Salame and the government, according to a recent court filing.

Salame made a deal that would have the government stop its investigation into his partner, once Republican congressional candidate and now fintech think tank CEO Michelle Bond, or have the government vacate his conviction.

Bond is under investigation by Manhattan federal prosecutors over allegations of campaign finance violations related to contributions made by Salame and others to her 2022 congressional campaign.

Salame pled guilty to campaign finance violations in September 2023, CoinDesk reported at the time. In May, Salame was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison for the campaign finance violations as well as running an unlicensed money transmitting business – charges that resulted from his role as one of the organizers of FTX's fiat-to-crypto payment rails.

Now Salame's attorneys argue that his plea was improperly induced by promises from prosecutors to protect Bond, the mother of his child, from further legal scrutiny.

"Yet despite Salame’s cooperation," Salame's attorneys argue in the filing, "The Government failed to honor its implied commitment not to pursue the campaign-finance charges against Bond."

The filing states that federal 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."

Salame’s attorneys are now requesting that the court either enforce the government’s initial promise to drop the investigation into Bond or vacate Salame’s conviction altogether.

"Salame is entitled to hold the Government to its assurance by either withdrawing his plea or obtaining an order directing specific performance," the document argues.

Publicly, Salame remains defiant, posting 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 continued.