NEW YORK (AP) — A one-time candidate for Congress in New York was arrested Thursday on charges that she schemed with her domestic partner, an executive at the collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange, to use the company’s money to illegally fund her campaign.
Michelle Bond, 45, of Potomac, Maryland, was released on $1 million bail after a brief court appearance in Manhattan federal court to face charges that she conspired with Ryan Salame, the ex-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, to cause unlawful campaign contributions in connection with her unsuccessful run in a Republican primary on eastern Long Island in 2022.
Her lawyer did not immediately comment. A spokesperson for prosecutors did not return a request for comment.
The charges constitute another twist in the story of the downfall of FTX, which was one one of the world’s most popular crytpo trading platforms before it fell apart in an avalanche of allegations against its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.
Salame pleaded guilty last year to campaign finance and illegal money-transmitting charges in connection with his work for the company and was sentenced in May to 7 1/2 years in prison.
The day before Bond’s arrest, Salame asked a judge to nullify his guilty plea, saying prosecutors had suggested that Bond would not be arrested if he entered the plea and concluded his case.
Salame said in court papers that he has satisfied all the requirements of his plea deal, including paying $500,000 in fines, $6 million in forfeiture and $5.5 million in restitution. He described Bond as his domestic partner and the mother of his 8-month-old child.
Bond was charged with conspiracy to cause unlawful campaign contributions, causing and accepting excessive campaign contributions, causing and receiving an unlawful corporate contribution and causing and receiving a conduit for contributions. Each of the charges carries a potential sentence of up to five years in prison.
According to the charges, Bond and Salame created a “sham consulting agreement” between Bond and FTX, enabling Bond to receive $400,000, shortly after launching her congressional campaign.
According to an indictment, Bond used the funds to illegally finance her campaign. It said Salame wired hundreds of thousands of dollars more to Bond between June and August of 2022.
While Salame was a high-level executive at FTX, he was not a major part of the government’s case against Bankman-Fried at his trial earlier this year and did not testify against him.
In a bid for leniency, Salame said at his sentencing hearing that he cooperated and even provided documents that aided prosecutors in their cross-examination of Bankman-Fried, as well as in his own prosecution.
Salame’s plea pertained to illegal campaign contributions made to politicians of both parties, but not specifically to Bond’s campaign.
Bond, who was once a cryptocurrency industry lobbyist, ran a well-funded campaign but ultimately lost in the 2022 Republican primary to U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota, getting 28 percent of the vote in a three-way contest. The race got attention at the time because of donations from groups associated with the cryptocurrency industry, which at the time was trying to persuade U.S. lawmakers to create a more friendly regulatory environment.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March after he was convicted of cheating hundreds of thousands of customers of FTX, which collapsed in November 2022.
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This story has been corrected to reflect that Salame’s prison sentence was 7 1/2 years, not 8 1/2 years.
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