Ex-Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky Moves to Vacate 12-Year Sentence

Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of defunct cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius, has filed a motion in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking to vacate his 144-month sentence, which Judge John Koeltl imposed in May 2025. Mashinsky submitted the filing pro se after announcing on May 5 that he would proceed without counsel, saying, “I did not discharge my counsel at this time but they stopped communication with me so I had no choice but to file my reply directly with the court.” Although he pleaded guilty to commodities fraud and securities fraud tied to “manipulative and deceptive devices,” Mashinsky argues his counsel was ineffective and invokes the “fruit of [the] poisinous [sic] tree,” a doctrine about evidence tainted by authorities’ misconduct, as part of his motion to vacate.

Attached documents allege former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried intended to “destroy Celsius” and blame him for much of the market manipulation of the network’s CEL tokens on the crypto exchange.

United States, Southern District of New York

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