Former FTX senior executive Ryan Salam told News that even though he pleaded guilty, he is essentially innocent. Salam began a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence last week.
Ryan Salam puzzles me.
In September 2023, a former FTX executive pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
A year later, the 31-year-old confirmed to the judge presiding over his case, Louis Kaplan, that his guilty plea was true.
However, in a media blitz days before he was to begin his seven-and-a-half-year sentence, Salameh insisted on his main innocence.
“I don't think I did anything criminally wrong,” Salam told me in an interview.
However, he now resides in a medium-security federal prison in western Maryland.
Better with facts
Salameh wants two ways: a plea deal to reduce his time in prison and an amended article in his defense.
In fact, he wrote an unpublished 180,000-word memoir to retell the saga of FTX from his perspective — with the help of a ghostwriter recommended to him by famed author Michael Lewis.
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“I'm not great at character development,” he says. “I'm better with facts.”
Last Wednesday, 48 hours before Salam surrendered to authorities, I drove to the ritzy Washington suburb where he lived to piece together the puzzle.
Salam (pronounced Salem) is the co-CEO of FTX Digital, the Bahamas subsidiary of the crypto exchange that exploded in November 2022 and led to the most sensational fraud investigation in the crypto industry's 15-year history.
When the dust cleared, co-founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty by a federal jury in New York on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in connection with the misappropriation of $8 billion in customer funds. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
And Bankman-Fried's top lieutenants — Carolyn Ellison, Nishad Singh, Gary Wong and Salameh — all reached plea deals with the Department of Justice.
outsider
But Salameh is the eldest among the four.
He wasn't the only one to testify against his former boss during the Bankman-Fried hearing in October 2023.
Salam said he was not involved in the fraud at FTX and Almeda Research, the interconnected crypto investment fund Bankman-Fried also managed.
And unlike many of his colleagues, he's less of an awkward nerd and a red meat-loving crypto bro. (Salam told me he only seemed bro-y by comparison to Bankman-Fried and the other three lieutenants.)
'I got to the point where I couldn't do anything because I was doing porn and people were texting me every minute of every day.'
– Ryan Salame
Since FTX declared bankruptcy, none of Bankman-Fried's convicted lieutenants – outside the courtroom – have spoken publicly.
Salame opens first.
Ryan Salameh's $4 million mansion is hard to miss. “There's a white Porsche in the driveway,” he texted me.
With an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, a sauna and a billiards room, among other amenities, his home is a testament to the prosperity he enjoyed as a top executive at FTX. He was once worth $1 billion, he told me. Now, his value is zero.
'A ton of sadness'
Salame opened the door and invited me inside. Tall, fit and tan, he was barefoot and wearing a green sweater, blue jeans and a bracelet his stepdaughter had made for him.
Salam's wife Michelle Bond, a former Republican congressional candidate in New York supported by members of the Trump family, also said hello.
Family photos are on a table facing the foyer. In November 2023, a son was born to the couple.
After a few pleasantries, the 45-year-old Bond left us in serious legal jeopardy. Salameh and I settled into a leather couch in the wood-paneled library of his home.
happiness #NationalIce CreamDay! We stopped tonight at Rogers Frigate in Port Jeff — a hometown favorite of mine. pic.twitter.com/pCzOyDeSbY
— Michelle Bond (@michellebond111) July 18, 2022
happiness #NationalIce CreamDay! We stopped tonight at Rogers Frigate in Port Jeff — a hometown favorite of mine. pic.twitter.com/pCzOyDeSbY
— Michelle Bond (@michellebond111) July 18, 2022
Nearby is a baby bouncer and on another table is a nearly five-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower that Salameh built from 10,000 Lego bricks.
“I literally went from doing porn and having people texting me every minute of every day,” he said.
Well, nothing more than reflecting on the decisions and events that derailed his once-thriving career at the $32 billion crypto startup.
“I'm very sorry,” said the western Massachusetts native, his legs criss-crossed on a leather sofa.
One of Salame's main suspicions? Bad lawyers said. Another one? He often stood in for Bankman-Fried.
In 2019, Salame went to work at Almeda Research and established banking relationships for the fund and FTX. Soon, he became one of the crypto mogul's most trusted lieutenants.
Prosecutors later said he helped fraudulently obtain an account at Silvergate, a bank that caters to crypto clients.
'If I hadn't gone to the lawyers, I think I would have been in a much better position.'
– Ryan Salame
In October 2021, Salameh moved to the Bahamas to work for FTX. “Things have changed so fast,” he said.
As FTX grew, Bankman-Fried spent heavily on Curry's influence in Washington. By the time the exchange collapsed, the CEO had donated more than $100 million to political candidates and PACs, or political action committees.
But court documents show that many of the donations, often made to pro-crypto Democrats and Republicans, were improper. Instead, the government said they were part of a scheme by grassroots donors to hide where the funds came from.
Prosecutors wrote that Salam played a key role in Bankman-Fried's plot, one of the largest campaign finance crimes in US history.
But Salameh thought he was acting within the law. FTX's lawyers have blessed the ways in which he directed and set up bank accounts for millions of political candidates.
“If I hadn't gone to the lawyers, I think I would have been in a much better position,” he said.
Neither Dan Friedberg nor Ken Son, two former FTX attorneys whom Salame mentioned in our conversation, responded to a request for comment.
Pleading guilty
Even after the collapse of the crypto exchange, the former FTX executive continued to be saddled with bad lawyers.
In September 2023, Salam accepted a request from the Justice Department to protect his wife, he argued in court documents.
During negotiations with prosecutors, Bond is also under investigation for campaign finance violations.
Salameh said his attorneys told him the Justice Department would revoke the bond if he pleaded guilty.
However, nearly a year later in August, Bond was indicted for campaign finance violations stemming from her relationship with Salam. She pleaded not guilty.
As a result, Salam asked to withdraw his plea, but prosecutors denied there was any deal.
“Salam, who was supposed to accept full responsibility for his actions before sentencing, now resorts to inaccurate, incomplete and completely false arguments,” the government wrote in September in response to Salam's petition.
Salam told me he was unhappy with his lawyers at Meyer Brown, an international law firm that originated in Chicago, and had hired a new firm to help defend him from prison.
Representatives for Mayor Brown declined to comment.
Pleas of despair
Salame wanted him to leave FTX much earlier. He wishes he and his other FTX compatriots paid more attention to the nitty-gritty legal details. And he didn't want to be silent at first.
“I can read you a list of regrets,” Salam concluded.
After FTX collapsed, customers sent him suicide notes. “Some are more desperate,” he said. “Some less.”
A former FTX executive received a particularly dire message on LinkedIn, he told me.
He wanted to respond, but his lawyers told him not to talk to anyone after the FTX collapse. “I've had bad moments,” he said. “It's been a bad couple of years.”
'It's exciting.'
But Salameh is silent.
“I'm cautiously optimistic that something will happen as people realize that this whole story is complete bullshit,” he said.
It is unclear what Salam hopes will happen.
He thought his outspokenness would motivate one of Bankman-Fried's lieutenants, Nishad Singh, who pleaded guilty and testified on behalf of the government to challenge the government's story.
And perhaps, Salam's repeated interviews with the press were a form of public therapy.
“It does something for me,” he said, then added: “It's a catalyst.”
In the conversation, Salameh maintains a level of defiance that despite being in prison only hours later, he still has a chance to escape his fate.
Hearing of Petition
However, Salaam's statements in court belie his blameless professions.
“I know that making donations in my name with money that is not my own is prohibited by campaign finance laws,” Salam said during his plea hearing in September 2023.
A year later, in September, Kaplan set up a court hearing after confusing filings in which Salam's lawyers tried to overturn his petition to overturn his conviction.
Kaplan asked if it was true that he had previously admitted to violating campaign finance law.
“Yes, your honor,” said Salameh.
A month later, and before our interview, his new lawyers filed an eleventh-hour request to again delay his self-surrender. Kaplan denied Salam's request.
“I am excited to share that I will be starting a new position as an inmate at FCI Cumberland!” A former FTX executive said in a update to his LinkedIn profile.
Heaven is lost
We ended our conversation and I said goodbye to Bond, who was making fish stew for lunch and doing other household chores to prepare for Salame's departure.
Salameh, who lives on steak and seafood, told me that his last dinner will probably be at Bethesda's Crab House, a local favorite.
As Salameh and I left his home library, he walked me to the door. I looked back.
On one of the library shelves sits an 18,000-piece puzzle set he worked on — but never finished — after moving back to the States from the Bahamas after the FTX collapse.
Titled “Paradise Sunset”, it showed the sun setting over a tropical coastline.
“Prepare for extended holidays,” read Puzzle Online Description.
Ben Weiss is the Dubai correspondent News. Got a tip? Email him [email protected].
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