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Former FTX executive Ryan Salame is set to receive a prison sentence on May 28 after pleading guilty last September. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the South District of New York will determine the length of Salame’s jail term for making illegal political donations at the direction of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Salame also confessed to conspiracy charges related to operating an unlicensed money transfer business at Alameda Research, where he acted as a straw donor for Bankman-Fried’s political lobbying efforts by making over 300 contributions to bipartisan U.S. campaigns.
The sentencing for Salame was initially scheduled for May 1, with reasons for the delay remaining unclear. Other associates of Bankman-Fried, including FTX co-founder Gary Wang, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, and ex-lead engineer Nishad Singh, are also awaiting sentencing. They all pleaded guilty to violations while working under Bankman-Fried and testified as government witnesses after reaching plea agreements. Bankman-Fried himself was convicted on seven criminal charges, including fraud, last year, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison by Judge Kaplan, who also ordered him to repay over $8 billion stolen from his companies.
Meanwhile, under the leadership of new CEO John J. Ray III, bankruptcy administrators are working to recover assets and funds to repay creditors of the troubled crypto exchanges, which owe approximately $16 billion to more than 36,000 customers. Ray and his team aim to reimburse creditors 90% of the recouped wealth, with the estate holding between $7 billion and $9 billion as of last year to cover the shortfall caused by Bankman-Fried. Assets like the Anthropic stake, $2 billion in Grayscale GBTC shares, and Solana (SOL) tokens have been liquidated at discounted prices to raise funds. However, claimants are unhappy with the decision of the firm to repay asset value based on the time of the bankruptcy declaration in November 2022.
