Former FTX executive Ryan Salame was given hours to report to prison Friday, ordered to surrender after U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan questioned his ongoing dog-bite narrative.
Earlier this week, Salame asked for more time to receive medical treatment, stating that he is still recovering from injuries sustained alongside a dog bite in June. When he first asked the court for a postponement months ago, that request was granted, delaying Salame’s scheduled surrender.
In U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s two-page ruling, he wrote that Salame has already “benefited from extremely generous postponements.” Questioning the veracity of prior statements made, he ruled that Salame must surrender to the Bureau of Prisons no later than 2pm ET Friday.
The government opposed Salame’s most recent request, arguing that the former executive appeared “to have substantially recovered” from his canine encounter at a court conference last month. The treatment and surgery he now seeks “seems largely cosmetic and nonurgent,” they added, stating he looked “unimpaired” during a recent interview with Tucker Carlson.
Although posted Thursday, the videotaped Carlson interview appeared to be several weeks old, as Salame discussed that he was considering plans to appeal his plea after Feds pursued charges against his partner, Michelle Bond—that saga played out in court in August. He also speculated about the prison sentence for former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, who was ultimately sentenced on September 24.
Judge Kaplan sentenced Salame to 90 months in prison in May. Not long before FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried faced trial last year, Salame struck a plea deal, pleading guilty to campaign finance law violations and operating an unlicensed money transmitter business.
While Salame’s sentence was far less than the 25 years in prison that Bankman-Fried received for fraud and money laundering, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Salame, a one-time lieutenant at FTX committed serious offenses to amass “unlawful political influence.”
Salame did not testify against Bankman-Fried, unlike Ellison, the former CEO of FTX’s customer-fleecing sister firm Alameda Research. While her cooperation with the government’s investigation into FTX was a factor, she was still sentenced to two years in prison last month.
In an unconventional post on the job-centric social media platform LinkedIn, Salame telegraphed a life change earlier this week. “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as [an] inmate at FCI Cumberland,” the former co-CEO of FTX’s Bahamian subsidiary wrote.
Throughout the aftermath of FTX, Salame has maintained he was “duped” by Bankman-Fried, who filed an appeal in September arguing he was “presumed guilty” at trial.
However, prosecutors have challenged this notion, highlighting a $5 million withdrawal Salame made from FTX as it teetered toward bankruptcy nearly two years ago. And his imminent imprisonment stems from a conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the Federal Election Commission.
The former executive, who will soon follow in his ex-boss’s footsteps, has appeared flippant online. Recently donning a prison uniform, goatee, and a face tattoo for his profile picture on Twitter (aka X), the former executive expressed concern for his Wordle streak Thursday.
My wordle streak 😭😭😭
— Ryan Salame (@rsalame7926) October 10, 2024
Edited by Andrew Hayward