New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Friday that she has secured a settlement involving up to $35 million from former Celsius chief executive Alexander Mashinsky. In addition to the monetary compensation, the agreement includes a permanent prohibition on Mashinsky’s participation in securities, commodities, or cryptocurrency industries.

The AG initiated legal action against Mashinsky in 2023, alleging that he misled hundreds of thousands of investors—including more than 26,000 New York residents—regarding the safety of their Celsius accounts.

After pleading guilty to securities and commodities fraud, Mashinsky is serving a twelve‑year federal prison term and was barred indefinitely from commodity activities by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in June 2022.

The settlement stipulates that the State will recover $25 million from Mashinsky’s holdings if he fails to forfeit $10 million in ill‑gained funds to the federal treasury. A further $10 million penalty will apply should he not complete his full sentence.

Subsequent to these developments, Celsius suspended customer withdrawals in June 2022 and later filed for bankruptcy.

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