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Danielle Sassoon, one of the U.S. attorneys in charge of bringing former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried to justice, recently took the stand during an important hearing related to a deal with one of the company’s executives.
During a hearing on Thursday at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Sassoon shared insights about Ryan Salame, the ex-co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, who pleaded guilty and is now facing more than seven years behind bars.
As reported by Inner City Press, Sassoon mentioned that her team might “probably not continue to investigate [Salame’s] conduct” if he chose to plead guilty. However, digging deeper into the actions of the former FTX executive and his then-girlfriend, Michelle Bond, led to charges against Bond related to campaign finance issues.
“I’m not in the business of gotcha or tricking people into pleading guilty,” Sassoon stated, referring to the charges against Bond following Salame’s plea.
Bond, one of the last figures involved in the criminal cases against former FTX executives, is fighting to have her charges dismissed. She claims that prosecutors “induced a guilty plea” from Salame. If her case wraps up, it would likely mark the end of the legal troubles that began when FTX declared bankruptcy back in November 2022.
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Bond has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to cause unlawful campaign contributions, as well as causing and receiving excessive and unlawful contributions.
These charges link back to Salame allegedly directing $400,000 from FTX funds towards Bond’s 2022 campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Salame started serving his seven-and-a-half-year sentence in October 2024. Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, pled guilty and is now serving a two-year sentence since November 2024.
Two other former executives, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang, also pled guilty and received sentences of time served.
As for Bankman-Fried, he’s still in the spotlight. He has been behind bars since August 2023 after a judge revoked his bail over witness intimidation claims. He was eventually tried, found guilty, and sentenced to 25 years in prison, drawing significant attention from the crypto community.
On November 4, SBF’s lawyers made an appearance in court to argue for overturning his conviction and sentence. They claimed that Bankman-Fried was “never presumed innocent” during his trial and argued that his legal team couldn’t present important information about FTX’s solvency.
Many in the crypto space are speculating that SBF might be seeking a pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump, who previously pardoned former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, saying, “what he did is not even a crime.”
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