Former U.S. congressional candidate Michelle Bond has been indicted by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams on suspicion of illegal campaign contributions. Bond ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Representatives for New York's 1st District in 2022 as a Republican candidate. Prosecutors accused her of working with former FTX executive Ryan Salame to obtain $400,000 from a cryptocurrency exchange in the Bahamas through a bogus consulting agreement and using the funds for her campaign. Bond declared the payments as "consulting income" in her financial disclosures, but was accused of concealing the source of the funds and lying to Congress. Bond faces four counts, including "conspiracy to cause illegal campaign contributions," which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Salame had previously been convicted of illegal political donations and operating an unlicensed money transmission business, and tried unsuccessfully to block an investigation into Bond.