Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky gets 12 years prison for crypto fraud
NEW YORK : Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former chief executive of bankruptcy cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, was sentenced on Thursday to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty in December to securities fraud and commodities fraud.
Mashinsky’s sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan, and is among the longest in a criminal case arising from the 2022 meltdown in cryptocurrency markets.
Sam Bankman-Fried, who led the FTX exchange, is serving a 25-year prison sentence after being convicted of fraud. He is appealing.
Federal prosecutors said Mashinsky, 59, misled customers about Celsius’ safety, and artificially inflated the value of Celsius’ proprietary token Cel.
They sought a prison term of at…
