Ryan Salame, the head of FTX’s subsidiary in the Bahamas, was the first of Sam Bankman-Fried’s deputies to be sentenced since the crypto exchange collapsed in November 2022.
Ryan Salame, a top executive at the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on Tuesday, making him the first of Sam Bankman-Fried’s circle of advisers at FTX to receive prison time.
Mr. Salame, 30, a trusted lieutenant of Mr. Bankman-Fried, the exchange’s founder, pleaded guilty last year to a campaign finance law violation and a charge of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. He is one of four top deputies in the FTX empire who have pleaded guilty to crimes since the company imploded in November 2022.
Mr. Salame’s sentence exceeded the five to seven years that prosecutors had recommended. Defense lawyers had requested an 18-month sentence.
Before FTX failed, Mr. Salame was a key figure at the exchange, overseeing its subsidiary in the Bahamas, where the company was based. As FTX grew into a $32 billion business, Mr. Salame spent lavishly. He enjoyed expensive cars and private jets, and bought restaurants in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. He was also a prolific political donor, giving more than $24 million in the 2022 midterm elections, mostly to Republican candidates.
After FTX imploded in November 2022, Mr. Salame became a target of federal prosecutors, who searched his home in Maryland. Mr. Bankman-Fried was charged with stealing $8 billion from FTX’s customers and using the money to finance political contributions, venture investments and luxury real estate purchases. Three top FTX executives — Gary Wang, Nishad Singh and Caroline Ellison — pleaded guilty to financial crimes and agreed to cooperate with the government. They all await sentencing.
In September, Mr. Salame also pleaded guilty, admitting that he had acted as an illegal “straw donor” who made political contributions at the direction of Mr. Bankman-Fried to evade federal disclosure requirements. In a sentencing memo to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, prosecutors called it “one of the largest ever” campaign finance offenses in American history.