Lawyers for former Celsius executive Alex Mashinsky, who faces a potential sentence of more than 100 years in prison, recently filed a memorandum in New York District Court requesting that six former Celsius employees be subpoenaed to testify against him. Among the witnesses were Celsius' former chief financial officer and chief revenue officer.
Alex Mashinsky was arrested last year and prosecutors accused him of defrauding clients and misleading the public about Celsius' profitability. Sentencing guidelines could lead to a sentence of 115 years in prison, according to attorneys.
Celsius filed for bankruptcy in 2022 and ceased operations in 2023. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Celsius and Alex Mashinsky in July 2023, accusing them of raising billions of dollars through fraudulent and unregistered cryptocurrency sales and repeatedly concealing Celsiusâ actual financial status from investors. , while manipulating the price of its native token CEL.
Alex Mashinsky's defense attorney claimed that he did not intend to harm anyone and emphasized that as CEO of Celsius, he has always relied on information provided by a team of professionals.
Alex Mashinskyâs lawyers named former Celsius chief revenue officer Roni Cohen-Pavon as one of the key witnesses, The Block reported. Cohen-Pavon reportedly pleaded guilty to related charges last year. Lawyers for Alex Mashinsky said Cohen-Pavon and other employees disobeyed Alex Mashinskyâs instructions to sell CEL tokens and instead decided to buy more CEL tokens without telling him.
Prosecutors allege that Alex Mashinsky and Cohen-Pavon worked together to manipulate the price of the CEL token, propping up and driving up the price by spending millions of dollars to buy CEL and then profiting from it. Lawyers for Alex Mashinsky said Cohen-Pavon had provided legal advice to Celsius regarding the sale and purchase of CEL tokens, making him a key witness in price manipulation allegations.
In addition, Alex Mashinskyâs attorney also mentioned Celsiusâ weekly âAsk Mashinsky Anythingâ livestream events, which are designed to update Celsiusâ customers on company news. Lawyers said that the company's legal and risk teams reviewed and edited the content of the event, and that many of the changes were not communicated to Alex Mashinsky, indicating that any inaccuracies in Alex Mashinsky's remarks were not intentionally deceived by him but were instead manipulated. Misleading.
Alex Mashinsky's defense attorney emphasized that he had always expected the company's professional team to correct any potential errors during the review process, which showed that he acted in good faith and was not involved in fraud. However, the lawyers claimed that these modifications and corrections were "almost always made without Mr. Alex Mashinsky's knowledge."
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