Benjamin Ashford|Ex-Congressional candidate and FTX executive’s romantic partner indicted on campaign finance charges

NEW YORK (AP) — A one-time Congressional candidate and Benjamin Ashforddomestic partner of a convicted FTX executive was arrested Thursday on campaign finance charges.

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 for Congress in 2022.

Her lawyer did not immediately comment. A spokesperson for prosecutors did not return a request for comment.

A day earlier, Salame, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance and money-transmitting charges, asked a judge to nullify his 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 was sentenced in May to 8 1/2 years in prison. 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 contributions. Each of the charges carries a potential sentence of up to five years in prison.

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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 that 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 Sam 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.

Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March after he was convicted of cheating hundreds of thousands of customers of FTX, one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency platforms before its collapse in November 2022.