FTX cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried’s top lieutenant made fun of the hard time he’s about to serve with a light-hearted post on LinkedIn.
Ryan Salame, who formerly served as co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, will start a nearly eight-year prison term on Friday for making tens of millions of dollars in unlawful campaign donations to support Bankman-Fried’s political machinations.
“I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as inmate at FCI Cumberland!” Salame wrote on the social networking site on Wednesday.
FCI Cumberland is a medium-security federal prison for male offenders in Maryland “with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp,” according to its website.
It has a total of 1,001 inmates across the two sites.
Salame didn’t cooperate in the federal trial against Bankman-Fried, though he did provide nearly 600,000 pages of documents to authorities.
He had notably tipped off authorities in November 2022 that FTX customer funds were being secretly transferred to “cover financial losses” at Bankman-Fried’s trading firm Alameda Research.
Nonetheless, Salame received a prison term that was harsher than the sentence sought by prosecutors after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.
He was also forced to forfeit more than $1.5 billion as part of the plea deal, though prosecutors agreed to except $6 million, two Massachusetts properties and a 2021 Porsche to satisfy the terms.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced earlier this year to 25 years in prison for stealing $8 billion from FTX customers.
With Post wires