Michelle Bond, a former U.S. congressional candidate and the romantic partner of former FTX cryptocurrency exchange executive Ryan Salame, has been charged with violating campaign finance laws, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan stated that Bond, during her unsuccessful 2022 campaign for a New York congressional seat, illegally used $400,000 from the cryptocurrency exchange where her partner served as an executive to finance her campaign, breaking laws that prohibit corporate contributions.
Prosecutors did not mention Salame or FTX by name. However, in a court filing on Wednesday, Salame accused them of reneging on their assurance that they would not investigate Bond—whom he described as the mother of his child—if he pleaded guilty.
Salame, who pleaded guilty last year, admitted to making tens of millions of dollars in unlawful campaign contributions to support causes backed by his boss, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. He received a 7-1/2-year prison sentence in May.
In his Wednesday filing, Salame urged U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to vacate his guilty plea, arguing that prosecutors had resumed their investigation of Bond despite their previous assurance.
Bond, 45, worked at the cryptocurrency trade group Association for Digital Asset Markets from 2020 to 2022, according to her LinkedIn profile. She lost the 2022 Republican primary to represent part of Long Island, New York, in Congress.
She now faces four criminal charges, including causing and receiving an unlawful contribution and causing and receiving a straw contribution.
Bankman-Fried, sentenced in March to 25 years in prison, was charged with stealing $8 billion from FTX customers, a crime prosecutors described as one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history.
