Furious FTX judge threatens sanctions on former exec Ryan Salame for lying in guilty plea

A furious federal judge on Thursday threatened to slap unspecified sanctions on former FTX executive Ryan Salame for lying to him last year when he pleaded guilty to campaign finance and money transmitting crimes.

Salame at a hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan admitted lying to Judge Lewis Kaplan by saying during his plea hearing that federal prosecutors had not made promises to him to induce his guilty plea.

Salame now claims prosecutors promised him through his then-attorneys that they would drop a criminal probe of his romantic partner Michelle Bond if he pleaded guilty in his case.

“You are asking me to let stand a conviction and sentence that I now know is based on false testimony before me in the plea allocution,” Kaplan told Salame on Thursday.

“And that might be a big problem,” the judge told Salame, whom he previously sentenced to 7½ years in prison, several months more than the top end of what prosecutors had requested.

Kaplan repeatedly said during the hearing that Salame “induced” him to accept his guilty plea and was visibly annoyed at the defendant.

Salame and other federal criminal defendants are required to testify truthfully during plea hearings and reveal if anyone has made promises or offers in exchange for their admission of guilt.

Kaplan told Salame, his lawyers and prosecutors that he will take some time to consider what should be done.

He said sanctions are possible against Salame, who had been a leader at FTX, the now-failed cryptocurrency exchange founded by convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.

Salame’s lawyer declined to comment to CNBC after the hearing.

The judge also said Thursday that Salame must now surrender to prison by Oct. 11 after officials realized that the prior surrender date of Oct. 13 would fall on a Sunday.

Last month, lawyers for Salame asked Kaplan to void his 2023 guilty plea by claiming that prosecutors weren’t holding up their end of the agreement.

Salame’s attorneys alleged in an August court filing that the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, despite promising Salame in April 2023 that they would stop probing his domestic partner Bond for campaign finance violations if he agreed to the arrangement, had continued to investigate Bond.

The defense lawyers asked Kaplan to void Salame’s guilty plea on those grounds.

A day after the filing, Bond was indicted in Manhattan federal court on campaign finance charges tied to her unsuccessful run for Congress in 2022. Prosecutors accused her of conspiring to raise unlawful campaign contributions from FTX.

The indictment alleges Salame conspired with Bond to commit the crimes, saying he arranged the payment from FTX to Bond.

Salame allegedly wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bond’s personal bank account between June and August 2022, which she put toward illegally funding her campaign, according to the indictment.

Days after Bond was charged, Salame filed a motion seeking to drop his bid to vacate his guilty plea.

Kaplan then ordered him to appear for Thursday’s hearing to review his allegations.

Salame reiterated during the hearing that he is no longer seeking to void his guilty plea.