Crypto Lobbyist Charged With Breaking Campaign Finance Rules

The charges against Michelle Bond, the former head of a crypto industry trade group, are part of the continuing legal fallout from the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange.

A former cryptocurrency industry lobbyist was charged with campaign finance fraud on Thursday, the latest criminal prosecution to stem from the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange.

Federal prosecutors in New York accused the former lobbyist, Michelle Bond, 45, of violating campaign finance laws in 2022, when she made an unsuccessful bid for Congress as a Republican on Long Island. In an indictment filed in the Southern District of New York, the prosecutors said Ms. Bond had received a “sham $400,000 payment” from FTX that was orchestrated by Ryan Salame, an executive at the exchange and Ms. Bond’s boyfriend.

Last year, Mr. Salame pleaded guilty to a separate campaign finance charge. He was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

Nearly two years after FTX filed for bankruptcy, the charges against Ms. Bond show that the legal fallout from the company’s implosion is not over. When FTX was a high-flying exchange, its executives made tens of millions of dollars in political donations — a spending spree that came under scrutiny from prosecutors after the company failed. Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, was convicted of fraud in November and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Ms. Bond, who ran a crypto industry trade group, was a longtime supporter of Mr. Bankman-Fried and FTX. Her ties to the company were strengthened after she met Mr. Salame. By 2022, they had started dating, according to the indictment.

That May, Ms. Bond made a last-minute bid for the Republican nomination for an open House of Representatives seat. Consultants involved in that race recalled that Mr. Salame had played an integral strategy role, including helping to recruit other donors from the crypto industry, appearing at campaign fund-raisers with Donald Trump Jr. and putting $1 million of his money into a supportive super PAC that was set up by Republican operatives who had grown close to Mr. Salame..

According to prosecutors, Mr. Salame provided a crucial source of financing for Ms. Bond’s campaign. In his role at FTX, he devised a consulting agreement for her that came with a $400,000 signing bonus, as well as an annual payment of $100,000. Ms. Bond “did not perform any services for the exchange pursuant to the consulting agreement,” the indictment said.

Instead, Ms. Bond spent the money from FTX on her campaign, the indictment said, and falsely reported the funds as a loan from her own accounts.

The money “was an illegal contribution from the exchange to the campaign,” prosecutors said.

Ms. Bond lost in the Republican primary in August 2022. Three months later, FTX collapsed, after a run on deposits exposed an $8 billion hole in its accounts.

Ms. Bond pleaded not guilty at a hearing in federal court in New York on Thursday. She and Mr. Salame declined to comment.

The case against Ms. Bond shows that prosecutors are still examining the political influence operation at FTX.

Federal investigators have recently begun looking more deeply into the campaign finance world around Mr. Bankman-Fried, said two people briefed on the situation, who were surprised because they considered the matter closed after Mr. Bankman-Fried’s conviction.

Several months ago, prosecutors in Puerto Rico also began interviewing and soliciting information about an FTX dark-money organization on the island, one of the people said, over a year after initial inquiries had been made.

A representative for the U.S. attorney’s office in Puerto Rico declined to comment.

The investigation into Ms. Bond has also become a factor in Mr. Salame’s case. On Wednesday, he filed a motion to void his guilty plea, arguing that prosecutors had violated an “implied commitment” with him that they would drop their investigation into Ms. Bond in exchange for his plea. The prosecutors denied that any agreement had been struck.

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