Oregon Department of Justice officials announced Wednesday that they closed their investigation into a former cryptocurrency executive’s $500,000 political donation to the state Democratic Party in 2022 without finding enough evidence to prove the misreported contribution criminally violated state campaign finance laws.

Nishad Singh, who in 2022 was an executive at FTX, sent the Democratic Party of Oregon its largest donation on record in the final weeks of the competitive 2022 election for governor. At the time, Democrats reported the money was from a Las Vegas payment processing company called Prime Trust. After The Oregonian/OregonLive inquired about the transaction, the party said the money was actually from Singh.

Emails were later released that showed Democratic officials asking Singh’s representatives how they should report his donation. For example, the party’s compliance director asked Singh who should be listed as the “donor of record” in Oregon campaign finance records. A person in Singh’s office wrote back, “Nishad prefers Prime Trust.”

Under Oregon law, it is a Class C felony to make or accept a campaign contribution under a “false name.”

However on Wednesday Michael Slauson, chief counsel of the state’s Criminal Justice Division, said in a statement that prosecutors did not find sufficient evidence “to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Singh made the contribution in a name other than his own and that he did so knowingly.”

“Evidence that the contribution was made in a false name because of a miscommunication, inadvertence, or negligence would not suffice,” said Slauson, who oversaw the day-to-day work of the investigation.

Slauson similarly wrote that state Democratic Party officials who agreed to report the donation came from Prime Trust relied on a fundraising consultant who told them so. Even though some of them knew Prime Trust had earlier been falsely reported as the source of two large contribution to a political committee outside Oregon that were in fact given by Singh and his boss, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, a Democrat who has contributed more than $100,000 from her own campaign to the Democratic Party of Oregon over the years, recused herself from the investigation.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

—Hillary Borrud is an investigative reporter. Reach her at 503-294 4034, hborrud@oregonian.com or @hborrud.

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