Federal prosecutors blast ex-Celsius CEO’s motion to vacate as ‘without merit’

Currently serving a 12-year sentence in federal prison, Alex Mashinsky continues to explore legal avenues to vacate his conviction related to activities at Celsius.

An effort by Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of now-defunct cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius, to convince a federal court to vacate his 12-year sentence for fraud and market manipulation faces pushback from US prosecutors in the Southern District of New York (SDNY).

In a Friday filing, SDNY Attorney James McDonald and Assistant US Attorney Allison Nichols said that the court should deny Mashinsky’s petition to vacate his conviction and sentence, saying that many of his legal arguments were “without merit” and pushing back against claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. 

The former Celsius CEO informed the court in May that he would be proceeding pro se — that is, representing himself in the case — and filed a motion to vacate, including claims about cryptocurrency exchange FTX and his former colleague, the company’s chief revenue officer Roni Cohen-Pavon.

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