OR DOJ won't prosecute federal felon who admits he broke Oregon law

Oregon Department of Justice says it lacks evidence to prosecute crypto prince for record $500k contribution to Oregon Dems. It doesn't.

Former FTX cryptocurrency executive Nishad Singh leaving a federal courthouse in which he pleaded guilty to the federal crime of making political contributions in a false name. Oregon DOJ declined to prosecute Singh for violating state campaign finance law.

This is the fourth article in a series of sorts about Oregon Department of Justice’s decision not to prosecute former FTX executive Nishad Singh for acting as an illegal straw donor for a $500,000 contribution to the Democratic Party of Oregon in October 2022. I covered the decision in general here, new evidence of Senator Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) campaign’s extensive involvement in brokering the contribution here and DOJ’s finding that DPO did not knowingly misreport the source of the contribution despite the release of documents demonstrating it did here.

Today, we explore DOJ’s nearly inexplicable decision not to prosecute Singh for violation of Oregon campaign finance laws.

The Oregon Department of Justice declined to prosecute former FTX crypto executive Nishad Singh for violation of the state’s law against making political contributions in a false name even though Singh admitted to DOJ investigators that at least part of the $500,000 he gave to the Democratic Party of Oregon in 2022 came from FTX-affiliate crypto firm Alameda Research, documents produced by DOJ last month show.

Singh’s admission gave DOJ exactly what it needs to enforce Oregon’s campaign finance laws against Singh, who pleaded guilty to violating a similar federal statute. Oregon DOJ has an easy path - highlighted by its own investigation - to prosecute Singh, and fulfill its obligation to uphold the state’s campaign finance laws. Yet, it inexplicably declined to do its job.

Oregon law, at ORS 260.402, provides, “A person may not directly or indirectly reimburse a person for making a contribution or donation, or make a contribution or donation in any name other than that of the person that in truth provides the contribution, to . . . [a]ny political committee.” Violation of that law is a Class C felony, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $125,000 fine.

To convict Singh, DOJ would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that at least part of the $500,000 he contributed to DPO came from someone other than him. Singh admitted to doing exactly that when DOJ Assistant Attorney General Toby Greenleaf and DOJ Special Agent Kerri Jasso interviewed him June 5, 2024.

DOJ’s summary of its interview with Singh describes the content of Singh’s account with Prime Trust, LLC, the Nevada firm that acts as a kind of cryptocurrency bank, and from which Singh wired half a million dollars to DPO:

The Prime Trust account was described as co-mingled money from Alameda Research and Singh’s personal compensation. Singh added that he did not know how or why the DPO was selected, but he did agree to the donation and followed the same steps he did when he donated monies to other entities.

In this case, FTX’s head lobbyist Mark Wetjen contacted Singh directly to ask for the $500,000 donation to DPO. “Wetjen described [to Singh] that donating to the DPO would really help FTX as a whole,” according to the DOJ summary.

According to the summary, Singh told DOJ that he expected to be reported by DPO as the donor of record for the contribution, and would have, if asked, confirmed the same at the time.

So, on June 5 of this year, Singh admitted in an interview with Oregon DOJ that the contribution made in his name to DPO included funds actually from Alameda Research, which put those funds in Singh’s account for the purpose of making political contributions, like this one, that would “really help FTX as a whole.” (For more on why FTX might have reasonably believed it would help FTX gain favor with U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), check this out). This is a direct admission to the crime described in ORS 260.402.

Even before Singh’s admission became public record, it seems most everyone believed he broke Oregon law. In the Secretary of State proceeding prior to DOJ’s involvement, DPO pinned the blame for its misreporting of Singh’s donation on Singh’s fraud:

In 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried and Nishad Singh, executives in the cryptocurrency companies FTX and Alameda Research, made hundreds of criminally fraudulent, “false name” political contributions to campaigns and political committees across the country. The contributions were part of a secret criminal conspiracy to advance the political interests of their businesses, and the conspiracy included targeting campaigns in Oregon.

The stipulation between the Secretary of State’s Election Division and DPO, which ended the Election Division’s investigation into DPO and Singh and led to the referral to DOJ, recites Singh’s admission in federal court that he conspired “with others at FTX and Alameda to make political donations in my name that were funded in part by transfers from Alameda.” (Emphasis mine).

It further recites that DPO received a letter from the United States Department of Justice dated April 13, 2023, that said USDOJ (now that we have two DOJs at issue, I’ll refer to USDOJ and ORDOJ to try to keep things straight) has “cause to believe that [the $500,000 contribution at issue in this case] represent[s] the proceeds of [Samuel] Bankman-Fried’s crimes . . .” Those crimes included defrauding FTX investors and customers out of money FTX and Alameda used via straw donors including Bankman-Fried and Singh to make political contributions.

Finally, the stipulation provided the parties, DPO and the Elections Division (the latter represented by an ORDOJ attorney), could not then determine the identity of the actual donor of the $500,000. In fact, the stipulation requires DPO to once again amend its filing of the $500,000 contribution “to the extent the DPO is later informed by federal or state law enforcement officials of the correct identity of the $500,000 contributor, and anytime thereafter as may be necessary to comply with Oregon campaign finance law[.]”

Having closed her own investigation, on May 18, 2023, Elections Division Elections Program Manager Alma Whalen wrote ORDOJ’s Criminal Justice Division to refer the case for criminal investigation and, if appropriate, prosecution. That letter begins,

[T]he Elections Division is referring this case to your office for investigation because we believe that a violation of Oregon election law occurred. Specifically, we believe that Nishad Singh violated ORS 260.402 by knowingly making a contribution in a false name to the Democratic Party of Oregon on October 4, 2022.

And yet, after the Elections Division, DPO, and Singh himself had gone on the record with their belief that Singh had violated Oregon campaign finance law, DPO refused to prosecute.

Why?

Whether intentionally or otherwise, ORDOJ treated its investigation of Singh as confined to the question of whether he violated Oregon law by representing that the source of the $500,000 contribution was Prime Trust, his bank. In the July 17 letter from ORDOJ Criminal Justice Division Chief Counsel Michael Slauson to the Election Division’s Alma Whalen, in which Slauson tells Whalen of ORDOJ’s decision not to prosecute Singh, Slauson summarized what ORDOJ was looking for:

To bring criminal charges in this case, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Singh (1) made the contribution in in a name other than his own (in this case, Prime Trust), and (2) that he did so knowingly.

There are two problems with Slauson’s framing. The first is that nothing in Whalen’s referral, or in the record ORDOJ received from the Elections Division, requires or suggests that ORDOJ’s investigation be limited to whether Singh misrepresented Prime Trust as the donor of record. Indeed, the record from the Elections Division, including the items detailed above, demonstrated that Singh was party to a conspiracy with Bankman-Fried and others associated with FTX and Alameda to represent political contributions of funds from Alameda as a contribution from Singh personally.

It is Singh’s likely commission of that crime that formed the basis of DPO’s and the Election Division’s stipulation. Why, if Singh’s crime as suspected by DPO and Elections Division was to claim Prime Trust as the donor of record when he in fact was, would it be necessary to require DPO to amend its filing when it learns the identity of the true donor of record? DPO had already amended its filing to show Singh as the donor.

Singh pleaded guilty to the federal counterpart to ORS 260.402 explicitly on the basis that he conspired to represent himself as the donor of record for contributions consisting of Alameda funds.

And it is the factual predicate for that crime that Singh admitted when he was interviewed by ORDOJ.

The second problem with Slauson’s framing is that he, and ORDOJ throughout its investigation, incorrectly believes, apparently, that ORDOJ would need to prove that Singh knowingly made the contribution in a false name. In fact, ORS 260.402(1), the portion of the statute that prohibits making donations in a false name, does not require the criminal act be committed “knowingly,” or by any other state of mind. ORS 260.402(2) prohibits knowingly receiving political contributions in a false name, but the legislature chose not to require that same state of mind when making a contribution.

The “knowingly” error should not make a difference, though, as Singh admitted to knowing when he made the contribution to DPO that his Prime Trust account contained funds belonging to Alameda.

At present, ORDOJ has declined to prosecute Singh for his clear and admitted violation of Oregon campaign finance law. That decision was the result of ORDOJ’s decision to confine its analysis to whether Singh falsely described Prime Trust as the donor of record.

If that unwarranted decision on the part of ORDOJ was a mistake, it may yet revise its position and prosecute Singh for committing the crime he admitted to committing, and do its job of upholding Oregon’s campaign finance laws.