Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky has asked to get testimony from six witnesses who previously worked at the crypto firm as he is set to possibly face a prison sentence of over 100 years.
Mashinsky was arrested last year after prosecutors said he defrauded customers and misled them about Celsius’ profitability. In a memorandum filed Friday by his lawyers, he asked a New York district court to allow for those witnesses, ranging from the crypto lender's chief financial officer to chief revenue officer, to testify at his criminal trial. Many of the proposed witnesses live outside of the U.S., they said.
Mashinsky did not mean to harm anyone, his lawyers claimed in their memorandum.
"As the CEO of Celsius, Mr. Mashinsky relied on information provided to him by the experienced team of Celsius professionals around him," his lawyers said.
"The stakes are high," the lawyers later added. "The government has informed the defense that its 'current position' is that the Sentencing Guidelines call for Mr. Mashinsky to receive a sentence of 115 years in prison."
Celsius, which filed for bankruptcy in 2022 and was later wrapped up earlier this year, has caught the ire of multiple regulators. In July 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued the crypto lender and Mashinsky for allegedly raising billions through fraudulent and unregistered sales of crypto, repeatedly lying to investors about Celsius’ financial standing and manipulating the price of CEL, the company's native token.
The list of proposed witnesses includes former Celsius Chief Revenue Officer Roni Cohen-Pavon, who reportedly pled guilty to his criminal charges last year. Mashinsky's lawyers say Cohen-Pavon and other employees ignored Mashinsky's instructions to sell CEL tokens and instead decided to buy more tokens without telling the former CEO.
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Prosecutors have said Mashinsky and Cohen-Pavon manipulated the price of CEL by spending millions of dollars to buy CEL "with the objective of artificially supporting and inflating" its price and then selling them for a profit.
"Mr. Cohen-Pavon is a material witness on the manipulation charges because he provided legal advice to Celsius regarding the manner in which it purchased and sold CEL tokens in the open market from 2019 through 2022," Mashinsky's lawyers said in the filing.
Ask Mashinsky anything
During weekly "Ask Mashinsky Anything" live events, which updated Celsius customers on the company, Mashinsky's lawyers said the company's legal and risk employees made edits but didn't share those edits with him. The lawyers said there was a review process that included having the firm's legal, risk and regulation teams review the transcripts of the AMA sessions before posting them.
"As a result of this review process, Mr. Mashinsky fully expected and understood that any accidental or unintentional inaccuracies in his public statements would be brought to his attention," his lawyers said. "And when they were, the evidence shows that Mr. Mashinsky accepted them, which is evidence of good faith, not fraud."
However, corrections were "almost always made behind Mr. Mashinsky's back," they said.
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