Ex-top prosecutor who resigned rather than drop Adams case defends her integrity in court testimony

NEW YORK (AP) — The former interim U.S. attorney who quit rather than drop the criminal case against New York Mayor Eric Adams defended her integrity during testimony Thursday in Manhattan federal court.

Danielle Sassoon testified for more than an hour as a defense lawyer tried to convince a judge that she had suggested that prosecutors would not criminally charge a woman with crimes related to the FTX cryptocurrency scandal if the woman’s boyfriend pleaded guilty.

Sassoon, who graduated from Harvard College in 2008 and from Yale Law School in 2011, was adamant that she never suggested such a deal and had gone to great lengths to insist to the woman’s lawyers that no deal like that was possible.

“I’m not in the business of gotcha or tricking people into pleading guilty,” Sassoon said as Judge George B. Daniels looked on. Sassoon is now in private practice.

The one-time law clerk for late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia resigned last winter as interim U.S. attorney after refusing to carry out orders from the Justice Department to drop corruption charges against Adams earlier this year. The case was eventually dropped after prosecutors from Washington submitted a request to a judge.

The testimony on Thursday came as lawyers for Michelle Bond, of Potomac, Maryland, tried to convince the judge that prosecutors reneged on promises not to charge her with scheming with her boyfriend to use FTX cryptocurrency money to fund her unsuccessful 2002 primary run to represent eastern Long Island in Congress. The hearing is scheduled to continue with testimony from another witness next month.

Bond’s lawyers say prosecutors suggested she would not be prosecuted if they gained a guilty plea from Ryan Salame, FTX Digital Markets’ former CEO. He eventually pleaded guilty to campaign finance and illegal money-transmitting charges and was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison.

The lawyers said in court papers that prosecutors secured the plea from Salame “by stealth and deception” after they made an “express promise” that Bond would not be prosecuted if Salame pleaded guilty.

Bond, who is now married to Salame, was charged last year with conspiracy to cause unlawful campaign contributions, causing and accepting excessive campaign contributions, causing and receiving an unlawful corporate contribution and causing and receiving a conduit for contributions. She pleaded not guilty.

According to the charges, Bond and Salame created a “sham consulting agreement” between Bond and FTX, enabling Bond to receive $400,000, shortly after launching her congressional campaign.

At Thursday’s proceeding, Sassoon testified that she believed lawyers for Salame tried as a “negotiating tactic” to suggest that prosecutors had implied they would not charge Bond if Salame pleaded guilty.

She said if the lawyers truly believed it was a credible claim, “they would have made it directly to me.”

While Salame was a high-level executive at FTX, he was not a major part of the government’s case against Sam Bankman-Fried and did not testify against him. Currently serving his sentence, Salame, 32, is scheduled to be released in September 2030.

Last year, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he was convicted of cheating hundreds of thousands of FTX customers out of billions of dollars. The company collapsed in November 2022.