The former Celsius CEO will likely face seven felony counts at his trial, scheduled for September 2024.
Lawyers representing former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky filed a motion in federal court requesting a judge drop charges related to commodities fraud and market manipulation.
In a Jan. 12 filing in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Mashinsky’s legal team filed a motion to dismiss two felony counts the former Celsius CEO will likely face at trial in September 2024. According to the filing, the second count of commodities fraud was “repugnant” and “inconsistent” with the first count of securities fraud based on the government’s treatment of crypto.
“It is inconsistent and illogical to view the Earn Program as a security for purposes of Count One, and a commodity for purposes of Count Two,” said the filing. “It is not clear if the government intends to argue that Celsius’s Earn Program constituted the purchase of a security and the sale of a commodity at the same time [...] the government cannot have it both ways and the appropriate remedy is dismissal of one of the counts.”
