Biden-Era Prosecutors Accused of ‘Deception’ — and Targeting Republicans — in Breaking Plea Deal With Sam Bankman-Fried’s Top Lieutenant

A new motion to dismiss filed at the Southern District of New York makes a startling accusation — that President Biden’s Department of Justice reneged on a plea deal it offered to the then-pregnant fiancé of the lone conservative in fallen crypto-king Sam Bankman-Fried’s high command, Ryan Salame.The motion, filed by Michelle Bond, contends that the mother of three now faces years in prison “solely because of the government’s relentless pursuit of her husband, Ryan Salame, the only Republican-leaning executive at the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.” Mr. Salame was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison — by far the stiffest sentence given to anyone in the aftermath of the collapse of FTX save Mr. Bankman-Fried, who received 25 years. Unlike Mr. Bankman-Fried, who was convicted at trial, Mr. Salame’s sentence was part of a plea deal forged with a then-assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon. Ms. Sassoon would soon after be promoted to acting United States attorney. Ms. Bond is accused of illegally using FTX funds during an unsuccessful campaign she ran for Congress — and then lying to cover it up. Ms. Bond alleges that Ms. Sassoon, the lead prosecutor on the FTX cases, “secured a plea bargain from Mr. Salame … by stealth and deception — based upon the express promise that Ms. Bond — now Mr. Salame’s wife — would not be prosecuted for alleged campaign finance violations if he pleaded guilty.” Mr. Salame admitted to violating campaign finance laws and operating an illegal money-transmitting business.Ms. Bond, who is 14 years older than her husband, argues that the promise from prosecutors not to prosecute her is “the reason Mr. Salame agreed to plead guilty” and “paid a high price.” The DOJ accuses Mr. Salame and his co-conspirators of making “over 300 political contributions, totaling tens of millions of dollars, that were unlawful.” Mr. Salame gave generously to Republican candidates during the 2022 primary elections. One of those candidates was Ms. Bond, who ran to represent the First Congressional District on Long Island, which includes the Hamptons. Ms. Bond ran in the Republican primary on a self-described “America First” platform. Her motion to dismiss describes the campaign in less than epic terms — “In what her campaign consultants dubbed as the shortest campaign they had ever worked on, Ms. Bond both began and lost the primary in summer 2022.” Ms. Bond calls her bid for the seat that another Republican, Congressman Nick LaLota, now holds, a “short, unsuccessful campaign that the government now turns from mole hill to mountain.” She miscarried her and Mr. Salame’s child in the wake of the implosion of her push for high office. Mr. Salame pleaded guilty, but the government nevertheless charged Ms. Bond, who would go on to have a child with Mr. Salame (and has two children from a previous marriage), with four counts relating to campaign finance fraud.Mr. Bankman-Fried’s campaign contributions, which favored Democrats, were central to the government’s case against him. The SDNY originally charged him with campaign finance violations, but dropped that approach after the Bahamas, where FTX was based, objected that such a charge violated its extradition agreement. Still, prosecutors at trial accused Mr. Bankman-Fried of diverting tens of millions of dollars to political donations that were illegally siphoned off from FTX. “The government cannot,” Ms. Bond’s motion argues, “use its overwhelming bargaining advantage to coerce a plea agreement and then fail to live up to its terms.” Mr. Salame, after the charges were handed up against Ms. Bond, moved to withdraw his guilty plea. That motion has not yet been litigated. Mr. Salame is incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution Cumberland in Maryland.Mr. Salame’s LinkedIn page lists his current incarceration on his roster of “experiences,” and writes that while in prison he “manually implemented Dewey Decimal System with no internet access; trained Navy Seal style training daily 2+ hours with no water; honed chess, ping pong, yoga and spades skills; began pursuit of reading every presidential biography; learned to cook plethora of meals with 190 degree water and an iron; taught cryptocurrency courses to fellow campers; never screwed up a daily count.”Precedent in federal court in New York suggests that SDNY could bear the burden of proving the terms of Mr. Salame’s plea deal. The Second United States Appeals Court has held that the government’s obligation “is not limited to its four corners,” and that a plea agreement must be “strictly construed against the government.” That means that the DOJ could be found to have reneged on its deal even if the promise not to prosecute Ms. Bond was never memorialized on paper.Ms. Sassoon is no longer at SDNY. She resigned in February when President Trump’s Department of Justice decided to dismiss criminal bribery charges against Mayor Adams. On her way out, she alleged that Mr. Trump and the mayor had come to a quid pro quo with respect to immigration enforcement. The case was subsequently dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning that it cannot be brought again. Mr. Salame’s former boss, Mr. Bankman-Fried, has appealed his conviction and asked for a new trial. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers contend that he “was never presumed innocent. He was presumed guilty — before he was even charged. He was presumed guilty by the media. He was presumed guilty by the FTX debtor estate and its lawyers. He was presumed guilty by federal prosecutors eager for quick headlines. And he was presumed guilty by the judge who presided over his trial.”

Biden-Era Prosecutors Accused of ‘Deception’ — and Targeting Republicans — in Breaking Plea Deal With Sam Bankman-Fried’s Top Lieutenant

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