Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky, who is facing a potential sentence of more than 100 years in prison, has asked the court to have six former employees testify, including Celsius' former financial chief and chief revenue officer, in order to reduce his sentence.
Alex Mashinsky: No intention to hurt anyone
The lending platform Celsius initially declared bankruptcy in 2022, and founder Alex Mashinsky was arrested in 2023 on suspicion of defrauding users and misleading investors about Celsius’ financial status. His lawyer emphasized in a memorandum submitted to the New York District Court that, Mashinsky had no intention of hurting anyone.
The legal team stated:
As CEO of Celsius, Mashinsky relied on input from his experienced team and was unaware of the problems within the company's inner workings.
(The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined bankrupt company Celsius Network $4.7 billion, and the former CEO was arrested)
Information was tampered with without Alex Mashinsky's knowledge
Mashinsky’s defense also included the weekly AMAs.
The legal team claimed that the main purpose of the AMA was to update Celsius users on the company’s latest situation, and that Celsius’ risk control team would edit the content of the AMA before publishing without informing Mashinsky.
According to this process, Mashinsky fully trusted the team’s operations, and when he finally learned that the platform’s financial information was incorrect, he accepted the editorial corrections made by the team, which also showed that he had no motive for fraud.
Key witness has pleaded guilty
The six witnesses requested by Alex Mashinsky include former Celsius chief revenue officer Roni Cohen-Pavon, who pleaded guilty to related criminal charges last year.
This should be in response to accusations of manipulation and speculation of the platform currency CEL. Prosecutors allege that Mashinsky conspired with Roni Cohen-Pavon to manipulate the price of CEL tokens, trying to boost the price of the currency through large purchases and then dumping them.
Mashinsky's legal team emphasized that Mashinsky was not notified of these actions. Instead, Cohen-Pavon provided legal advice on how Celsius bought and sold CEL on the open market from 2019 to 2022.
(The founder of Celsius was exposed! He sold tens of millions of CELs over the past few years, all the way until the suspension of withdrawals)
Celsius sues pre-bankruptcy transfer users
The Celsius bankruptcy team is also looking for a way out for creditors and has even filed lawsuits against specific account holders.
It accuses users of making preferential transfers before bankruptcy, saying that specific users withdrawing large amounts of funds before bankruptcy may cause them to benefit before other creditors, violating the fairness principle of bankruptcy proceedings. Bankruptcy laws typically review such transfers to ensure that the distribution of funds to creditors is fair.
As the trial approaches, Mashinsky's defense strategy for a sentence of more than 100 years will depend on whether witnesses (former employees) have more dominance over the breaches that occurred on the Celsius platform than CEO Mashinsky.
This article Celsius founder Mashinsky faces a hundred years in prison and wants to rely on his former employees to overturn the crime. First appeared on Chain News ABMedia.