Former FTX executive Ryan Salame is scheduled to be sentenced in prison on May 28 after pleading guilty in September.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York is expected to rule on how long Salame will remain behind bars for making illegal political contributions at the direction of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Salame also pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to operating an unlicensed money transfer business at Alameda Research. Salame served as a straw donor to Bankman-Fried’s political lobbying efforts and made at least 300 donations to U.S. bipartisan campaigns, according to federal prosecutors.
FTX executives await sentencing
May 1 was Salameh’s first sentencing date, according to court records, but the reason for the change is unclear. Other Bankman-Fried comrades, such as FTX co-founder Gary Wang, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and former chief engineer Nishad Singh, are also awaiting sentencing.
All pleaded guilty to offenses while in Bankman-Fried’s empire and testified as government witnesses after agreeing to plea deals. Meanwhile, the FTX founder was found guilty on seven criminal charges, including fraud, last year.
Judge Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison and ordered him to repay more than $8 billion he stole from the company.
Elsewhere, bankruptcy trustees led by new CEO John J. Ray III continue to recover assets and funds to repay creditors. The troubled cryptocurrency exchange owes approximately $16 billion to more than 36,000 customers.
Ray and his team hope to repay creditors with 90% of the recovered wealth. As of last year, the estate said it had $7 billion to $9 billion on hand to cover the shortfall left by Bankman-Fried.
The company liquidated assets such as its stake in Anthropic, $2 billion worth of Grayscale GBTC stock, and sold Solana (SOL) tokens at a steep discount to raise funds. But claimants are aggrieved by the company’s decision to repay the value of its derived assets when it declared bankruptcy in November 2022.