By David Yaffe-Bellany and Theodore Schleifer
A former cryptocurrency industry lobbyist was charged with campaign finance fraud last week, the latest criminal prosecution to stem from the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange.
Federal prosecutors in New York accused former lobbyist Michelle Bond, 45, of violating campaign finance laws in 2022, when she made an unsuccessful bid for Congress as a Republican on Long Island. In an indictment filed in the Southern District of New York, prosecutors said Bond received a “sham $400,000 payment” from FTX that was orchestrated by Ryan Salame, an executive at the exchange and Bond’s boyfriend.
Last year, Salame pleaded guilty to a separate campaign finance charge. He was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison.
Nearly two years after FTX filed for bankruptcy, the charges against Bond show that the legal fallout from the company’s implosion is not over. When FTX was a highflying exchange, its executives made tens of millions of dollars in political donations — a spending spree that came under scrutiny from prosecutors after the company failed. Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX, was convicted of fraud in November and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Bond, who ran a crypto industry trade group, was a longtime supporter of Bankman-Fried and FTX. Her ties to the company were strengthened after she met Salame. By 2022, they had started dating, according to the indictment.
That May, Bond made a last-minute bid for the Republican nomination for an open House of Representatives seat on Long Island. Consultants involved in that race recalled Salame playing an integral strategy role, including helping to recruit other donors from the crypto industry, appearing at campaign fundraisers with Donald Trump Jr. and putting $1 million of his money into a supportive super PAC that was set up by Republican operatives who had grown close to Salame.
According to prosecutors, Salame provided a crucial source of financing for Bond’s campaign. In his role at FTX, he devised a consulting agreement for Bond that came with a $400,000 signing bonus, as well as an annual payment of $100,000. Bond “did not perform any services for the Exchange pursuant to the Consulting Agreement,” the indictment said.
Instead, Bond spent the money from FTX on her campaign, the indictment said, and falsely reported the funds as a loan from her own accounts.
The money “was an illegal contribution from the Exchange to the Campaign,” prosecutors said.
Bond lost in the Republican primary in August 2022. Three months later, FTX collapsed, after a run on deposits exposed an $8 billion hole in its accounts.
Bond pleaded not guilty at a hearing in federal court in New York on Thursday. She and Salame declined to comment.
The case against Bond shows that prosecutors are still examining the political influence operation at FTX.
Federal investigators have recently begun looking more deeply into the campaign finance world around Bankman-Fried, said two people briefed on the situation, who were surprised because they considered the matter closed after Bankman-Fried’s conviction.
Several months ago, prosecutors in Puerto Rico also began interviewing and soliciting information about an FTX dark-money organization on the island, one of the people said, more than a year after initial inquiries had been made.
A representative for the U.S. attorney’s office in Puerto Rico declined to comment.
The investigation into Bond has also become a factor in Salame’s case. On Wednesday, he filed a motion to void his guilty plea, arguing that prosecutors had violated an “implied commitment” with him that they would drop their investigation into Bond in exchange for his plea. The prosecutors denied that any agreement had been struck.
It is so sad