CoinVoice recently learned from Reuters that Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the crypto lending platform Celsius Network, pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud on Tuesday.
The 59-year-old Mashinsky was indicted on July 13, 2023, on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and market manipulation. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan stated that he misled Celsius customers, enticing them to invest, and artificially inflated the value of the company's proprietary crypto token. He pleaded not guilty to the charges that day.
Mashinsky stated at Tuesday's hearing that he pleaded guilty to two of the seven charges initially filed against him: commodity fraud and a fraudulent scheme to manipulate the price of CEL (Celsius token).
In court, Mashinsky admitted that in a 2021 interview, he provided Celsius customers with 'false comfort,' claiming that Celsius had obtained regulatory approval for its Earn program, when in fact it had not been approved. The program promised to use customers' crypto assets to generate investment returns. [Original link]
