Following the conviction of its “crypto king” boss Sam Bankman-Fried, Ryan Salame, 30, is the first deputy in the corporation to get a sentence.
In November 2022, FTX unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy, locking millions of users out of their accounts and preventing them from making withdrawals.
In March, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison following his conviction for embezzling billions of dollars from his clients.
Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced Salame to seven and a half years in prison plus three years of supervised release on Tuesday. This exceeded the five years that the prosecutors had asked for.
Salame, a co-chief executive of FTX Digital Markets and a member of FTX’s Bahamas subsidiary, declined to testify against Bankman-Fried but said he had cooperated with investigators and given documents to help prosecutors.
The court heard that he was used as a conduit to make unlawful political contributions in an attempt to influence US government policy on cryptocurrencies, and that he assisted the exchange’s chief in hiding gaps in the company’s balance sheet, which ultimately caused it to collapse.
Salame contributed to Republican and right-leaning causes, whereas Bankman-Fried primarily supported Democratic and left-leaning initiatives.
Salame did, however, utilize money from Bankman-Fried.
