On Thursday afternoon in a New York courthouse, Ryan Salame, a former senior executive at the now-defunct cryptocurrency trading platform FTX, entered a guilty plea to criminal charges. Salame had been recognized as a leading player in the cryptocurrency market, therefore this development shocked the field.

Salame entered a guilty plea as part of a bigger legal dispute involving FTX, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year amid claims of fraud and money mismanagement. Due to the huge effects it had on investors and the larger crypto community, the demise of FTX had already generated media attention. Salame’s plea has now raised the stakes in the high-profile case.

Salame worked as the CEO of FTX and was a close ally of Bankman-Fried, who will be tried on multiple counts of conspiracy and wire fraud on October 2. To the allegations, Bankman-Fried has entered a not-guilty plea.

Salame’s likely guilty plea indicates a change of mind. According to a court document from last month, his lawyer had already informed the prosecution that if he were called as a witness against Bankman-Fried at the trial next month, he would assert his Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination.

Salame, a Republican megadonor, acted as a covert middleman for FTX contributions to right-wing candidates and political causes.

“I made political contributions in my name that were funded by transfers from an Alameda subsidiary,” Salame told Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is also administering Bankman-Fried’s trial, as he stated his guilty plea.

Salame claimed that although the transfers were “categorized as loans,” “it was understood that they would not be repaid.” Salame said that the contributions “were for the benefit of initiatives introduced by others but supported by Sam Bankman-Fried.”

Salame has been forced to forfeit more than $1.5 billion as part of his plea deal with the authorities. Prior to his scheduled March 2019 sentencing, he consented to forfeit $6 million. Salame has previously agreed to give the government a “2021 Porsche automobile” and a number of properties, including two homes in Massachusetts and ownership of the East Rood Farm Corporation, an organization Salame owns, to assist pay for this sum.

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