A losing candidate for Congress in Long Island was arrested Thursday after prosecutors accused him of illegally funneling $400,000 into his campaign coffers from FTX, the notorious cryptocurrency exchange where his girlfriend worked as a top executive.
Michelle Bond, 45, was hired by her boyfriend, Ryan Salameh, an executive at the then-fast-growing Bahamas-based company FTX, to work as a “consultant” for the company without her permission, and used the “fake” salary of $388,075 to fund her own political coffers.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, the funds allegedly diverted to fund his 2022 Long Island 1st District Republican Primary election violated federal laws banning corporate contributions and significantly exceeded individual contribution limits.
Bond, who runs a pro-cryptocurrency think tank called Digital Future in Washington, D.C., also lied about the cash being “consulting income” in financial disclosure documents to Congress, but later admitted in arguments he prepared for a lobbying firm’s board of directors that the money was for his campaign, court documents said.
“Attempts to launch promising careers in government through illegal dealings and lies undermine the integrity and credibility of our legislative system,” FBI Acting Assistant Director Christy M. Curtis said in a statement.
The court documents do not name Salameh or FTX, but Salameh identified Bonds as his “domestic partner and the mother of his child” in separate court documents filed Wednesday in which he sought to withdraw from a plea deal he struck with the federal government for campaign finance fraud.
Salameh, who was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison, accused prosecutors of “telling” him that they would drop the campaign finance investigation if Bond pleaded guilty to conspiring with his boss, convicted fraudster Sam Bankman Freed, to secretly misappropriate political funds.
In their filing, prosecutors blasted Salameh for a “brazen and self-serving attempt” to withdraw from the plea deal based on “factually baseless” and “legally unfounded” allegations.
Bond, who faces up to five years in prison, is scheduled to make his initial appearance in the case Thursday afternoon in Manhattan federal court. No attorney information was immediately available for him.
Bond lost the 2022 Republican primary for the 1st District, which covers the easternmost part of Long Island, to Republican Nick LaRota, who is now in a tight race for re-election against Democrat John Avlon.
