Clowns in Court
An FTX felon wants to take back his guilty plea after prosecutors charged his girlfriend with campaign finance violations
“99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.” – Steven Wright
Some advice for white collar criminals: Don’t rely on a talking point when cutting a plea deal with federal prosecutors. You can’t trust them. They can’t trust you. Everything has to be in writing.
Too bad Ryan Salame’s lawyers are too clownish to know this.
Salame, 31, was a top executive at the crooked crypto exchange, FTX. In September 2023, he accepted a plea deal and received a 7.5 year prison sentence.
He’s been ordered to begin serving on Oct. 13. But now he’s asking a federal judge to vacate his guilty plea after prosecutors filed charges against his girlfriend last week.
Prosecutors allege Michelle Bond, the mother of Salame’s child, illegally financed her Congressional campaign with a sham $400,000 payment from FTX. Salame claims prosecutors promised they wouldn’t charge her as part of his plea agreement, according to his court filings.
Bond, 45, who unsuccessfully ran as a Republican in Long Island, N.Y., is an attorney who should know something about plea deals.
Didn’t she notice that the alleged agreement to leave her alone was about as good as the paper that it was NOT written on?
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