Former FTX co-CEO Ryan Salameh pleaded guilty and lost $1.55 billion
Date: 2023-09-08 Author: Karina Ziganova Categories: IN WORLD
As Bloomberg reported on September 7, former FTX co-CEO Ryan Salameh is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges against him on Thursday.
Salameh, in turn, together with Sam Bankman-Fried, was responsible for FTX Digital Markets after the exchange collapsed in the fall of the previous year.
On Thursday, the former executive will appear in federal court in Manhattan to plead guilty. The event comes nearly a month before Bankman-Fried's trial, where he will face numerous criminal charges.
Under the terms of the agreement, he agreed to a monetary judgment of $1.55 billion representing property associated with the crime.
The plea agreement also states that Salameh will have to forfeit four replacement assets: two homes in Lenox, Massachusetts, owned by a farming community; Porsche 2021 Turbo S 911. Salameh transferred all his assets to the government before the verdict was announced, and he also pledged to pay $6 million by that date.
Once Salameh complied with all requirements, the government agreed not to seek additional replacement assets. If he fails to hand over all of the agreed assets through sentencing, the government has the option to take action to forfeit up to $1.55 billion in other assets.
Most likely, former comrades will testify.
With Salameh's guilty plea, the Justice Department now has four former Bankman-Fried associates, including himself, to testify against him. Among them are exchange co-founder Gary Wang, ex-Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and former FTX CEO Nishad Singh.
Salameh's testimony could be of great importance in the context of SBF allegations of illegal campaign financing. Although those charges were temporarily dropped from the upcoming November trial due to an extradition treaty in October, they are expected to be included in the next trial this year.
While at FTX, Salameh became a major contributor to the Republican Party, giving more than $24 million to various candidates. Because prosecutors insist that SBF made political donations with the support of other employees to various organizations, Salameh's testimony may support these allegations.
However, despite all SBF's loud declarations of innocence and emphasizing his hope with the support of expert opinions, the situation changed after the court revoked his bail.
