Ryan Salameh pleaded guilty to making tens of millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to boost causes backed by his boss.
Ryan Salameh, the former co-CEO of FTX’s Bahamas subsidiary and a close aide to the bankrupt crypto exchange’s founder Sam Bankman Freed, has been sentenced to 90 months in prison, federal prosecutors announced.
Salameh pleaded guilty in September to illegally donating tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to boost causes backed by his boss. The 7 1/2-year sentence announced Tuesday was longer than the five to seven years sought by prosecutors.
Bankman Freed was sentenced to 25 years in prison earlier this year for stealing $8 billion from FTX clients. A jury convicted him in November on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy stemming from FTX's collapse in 2022, in what prosecutors have called one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history. Bankman Freed is appealing his conviction and sentence.
According to prosecutors, Salameh, Bankman Freed, and former FTX head of engineering Nishad Singh used FTX customer funds to donate to political candidates who supported cryptocurrency-friendly legislation.
Salameh's lawyers have sought to distance him from the FTX fraud: “Like everyone else, he was deceived into believing that these companies were legitimate, solvent and making enormous profits,” they said in a filing ahead of the sentencing in early May.
In addition to the prison sentence, Salameh, 30, was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to forfeit more than $6 million and pay more than $5 million in restitution, prosecutors said in a statement.
“Salameh's involvement in two serious federal crimes undermined public confidence in the integrity of our elections and financial systems,” said U.S. Attorney Damien Williams for the Southern District of New York.
Salameh has donated more than $24 million to Republican candidates and causes during the 2022 election cycle, making him one of the top donors that year, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.
He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to make illegal political contributions and one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.
