The United States Ministry of Justice (DOJ) requests a 20-year prison sentence for Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of the Celsius bankrupt cryptography loan platform, to orchestrate what he calls a “campaign of lies and self-suens that lasted years” which has fraud thousands of investors.
In a memorandum of determining the sentence deposited on April 28, the federal prosecutors urged the court to impose a sentence of two decades, citing the central role of Mashinsky in a program which left customers incapable of accessing nearly $ 4.7 billion in cryptocurrency when Celsius froze withdrawals in June 2022.
The DoJ described fraud as deliberated and calculated, not the result of a bad judgment or a misfortune of the market.
Mashinsky admitted cryptographic fraud of $ 550 million, pocketed $ 48 million, says the doj
According to the court document, Mashinsky admitted to his guilt of December 2024 that he had led fraudulent activities that caused more than $ 550 million losses and brought it at least $ 48 million in personal earnings.
Prosecutors stressed that Mashinsky’s actions were not accidental but rather “the intentional efforts to deceive and fly”, designed to stimulate his own fortune to the detriment of retail investors.
At the height of his operation in 2021, Celsius claimed to manage more than $ 20 billion in cryptographic assets, promoting himself as a safe and profitable alternative to the traditional bank.
However, the DOJ revealed that behind the scenes, the company has engaged in risky loan practices, has made speculative trades and used customer funds to manipulate the price of its CEL token.
Mashinsky, despite the users he kept his CEL tokens, had in fact sold more than $ 48 million at inflated prices.
Celsius filed for bankruptcy in July 2022, leaving around $ 4.7 billion in locking user assets on the platform.
The DoJ argues that Mashinsky’s sentence should reflect significant damage to investors and dissuade a similar fault in the crypto industry.
Victims of Celsius demand a severe sentence for Mashinsky
Last week, disgruntled investors around the world urged a federal judge to impose the maximum sentence in Mashinsky for his role in the collapse of the company in 2022.
More than 200 impact declarations on the victims were submitted to the Court, the majority demanding a serious sentence, citing financial ruin, emotional distress and broken dreams.
An investor compared Mashinsky to Bernie Madoff and called for a perpetuity imprisonment, blaming him for pushing certain victims to suicide.
While his legal team asked for a little over a year, probation officers recommended 15 years.
The call for a severe sentence comes in the middle of a broader softening of the application of cryptography under the Trump administration, which recently forgiven several high -level cryptography figures.
Doj’s post requires a 20 -year sentence for the CEO of Celsius, Alex Mashinsky, on “deliberate” fraud appeared first on Cryptonews.
