FTX Straw Donor Ryan Salames Sentencing Slated For May 28

Former FTX executive Ryan Salame will be issued a prison sentence on May 28 following his guilty plea last September. 

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the South District of New York is scheduled to rule on how long Salame will spend in jail for making illegal political donations under the instruction of  FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. 

Salame also admitted to conspiracy charges related to running an unlicensed money transfer business in Alameda Research. According to federal prosecutors, Salame acted as a straw donor for Bankman-Fried’s political lobbying and made at least 300 contributions to U.S. bipartisan campaigns.

Court dockets revealed that May 1 was the initial date for Salame’s sentencing, but the reasons for the shift are unclear. Other Bankman-Fried comrades like FTX co-founder Gary Wang, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, and ex-lead engineer Nishad Singh also await sentencing. 

All pled guilty to violations during their time in Bankman-Fried’s empire and testified as government witnesses after agreeing to plea deals. Meanwhile, the FTX founder himself was found guilty of seven criminal charges, including fraud, last year.

Judge Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison and ordered that he repay over $8 billion stolen from his companies. 

Elsewhere, bankruptcy administrators under new CEO John J. Ray III continue to recover assets and funds to repay creditors. The troubled crypto exchanges owe about $16 billion to more than 36,000 customers. 

Ray and his team hope to reimburse creditors 90% of recouped wealth. As of last year, the estate said it held between $7 billion and $9 billion to cover the shortfall left behind by Bankman-Fried. 

The company has liquidated assets like its Anthropic stake, $2 billion in Grayscale GBTC shares, and sold Solana (SOL) tokens at a massive discount to raise funds. However, claimants are dissatisfied with the firm’s decision to repay asset value derived from when bankruptcy was declared in November 2022.