A federal judge denied Michelle Bond's bid to dismiss campaign finance charges, clearing the way for trial over allegations she used $400,000 from FTX to fund her 2022 congressional run.
"All parties, including the defendants and their counsel, were aware that the Government had not promised Bond's immunity by the time Salame entered his guilty plea," U.S. District Judge George Daniels wrote in his order Wednesday.
Bond, the wife of former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame, was indicted in August 2024 on four counts including conspiracy to cause unlawful political contributions and accepting excessive campaign contributions. Prosecutors allege Salame orchestrated a $400,000 consulting agreement between Bond and FTX after she launched her campaign for New York's 1st congressional district, with additional wire transfers totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing between June and August 2022. Each charge carries a maximum of five years in prison.
The ruling could set up one of the final criminal trials tied to FTX's 2022 collapse, keeping the exchange's political spending under legal scrutiny years after the bankruptcy. Salame was sentenced to 90 months in prison in May 2024 after pleading guilty to related campaign finance crimes.
Bond argued that then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon told her and Salame's lawyer in a 2023 meeting that if Salame pleaded guilty, prosecutors would "conclude the aspects of our investigation that concern RS (Ryan Salame), but not SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried)." Daniels rejected that claim, noting that Bond's former lawyer Gina Parlovecchio testified she did not believe Sassoon's statement was a promise at the time.
Prosecutors also allege Bond attempted to conceal the source of the payments and made false statements to a congressional committee and the Federal Election Commission. The case traces a direct line from Bankman-Fried's collapsed empire into American electoral politics — FTX and its affiliates were among the largest political donors in the country before the exchange filed for bankruptcy in November 2022.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
