Danielle Sassoon, one of the US attorneys behind the prosecution of former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, took the stand in an evidentiary hearing involving a deal with one of the company’s executives.
In a Thursday hearing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Sassoon testified about the guilty plea of Ryan Salame, the former co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, which resulted in his sentencing to more than seven years in prison.
According to reporting from Inner City Press, Sassoon said that her team would “probably not continue to investigate [Salame’s] conduct” if he agreed to plead guilty. Further investigation into the former FTX executive and his then-girlfriend, Michelle Bond, resulted in the latter facing campaign finance charges.
“I’m not in the business of gotcha or tricking people into pleading guilty,” said Sassoon, referring to Bond being charged after Salame’s plea.
Bond, one of the final figures tied to the criminal cases involving former FTX executives, has been attempting to have her charges dismissed based on claims that prosecutors “induced a guilty plea” from Salame. The end of her case would likely mark the final chapter in criminal charges that began when FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022.
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She pleaded not guilty to charges of 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 contribution.
The charges are closely tied to Salame allegedly ordering $400,000 in funds connected to FTX, which was used for Bond’s 2022 campaign for a seat in the US House of Representatives.
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Salame reported for his seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence in October 2024. Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, pleaded guilty and began serving a two-year sentence in November 2024.
Two other former executives named in the indictment, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang, pleaded guilty and received sentences of time served.
For Bankman-Fried, however, the saga is ongoing. The former CEO has been behind bars since August 2023, when a judge revoked his bail over allegations of witness intimidation. He was later tried, found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison as part of proceedings closely monitored by many in the crypto and blockchain industry.
SBF’s lawyers returned to court on Nov. 4 to argue for overturning the former CEO’s conviction and sentence. Filings claimed that Bankman-Fried was “never presumed innocent” during his trial and argued his legal team was not allowed to present information regarding FTX’s solvency.
There is also speculation among many crypto users that SBF may be attempting to obtain a pardon from US President Donald Trump. The president issued a pardon to former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao in October, claiming that “what he did is not even a crime.”
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