Judge John Koeltl approved delaying Cohen-Pavon’s sentencing to follow Mashinsky’s, set for April 2025, at US Attorney Damian Williams’ request.
After former CEO Alex Mashinsky reached an agreement with United States prosecutors, Roni Cohen-Pavon, the former chief revenue officer of crypto lending platform Celsius, will not be sentenced on Dec. 11.
Judge John Koeltl granted US Attorney Damian Williams’ request to postpone Cohen-Pavon’s sentencing hearing until after Mashinsky’s, which is scheduled for April 2025, in a filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on December 9.
Williams stated that Cohen-Pavon supplied information that “may be pertinent” to Mashinsky’s sentencing hearing.
Judge John Koeltl directed both parties to submit an update on April 18, which is ten days following Mashinsky’s scheduled hearing.
Following Cohen-Pavon’s guilty confession to four felonies, he had the authority to determine whether to incarcerate the former Celsius executive.
The decision was made in response to Mashinsky’s seemingly unexpected agreement to plead guilty to two charges on Dec. 3 as part of a compromise with prosecutors.
If the utmost sentence is imposed on both charges and served consecutively, he could be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison.
In July 2023, Mashinsky and Cohen-Pavon were indicted on charges of allegedly deceiving Celsius consumers and profiting from price manipulation.
Cohen-Pavon initially entered a plea of not guilty to the allegations, despite the fact that she was not in the United States at the time of the indictment.
Cohen-Pavon entered a plea of guilty to conspiracy to commit price manipulation, securities fraud, manipulation of security prices, and wire fraud following his detention in September 2023.
For more than a year, he has been anticipating his sentencing.
Cohen-Pavon Potential To Determine Whether Mashinsky Is Sentenced To Prison
It is uncertain how Cohen-Pavon’s guilty plea and any information he provided in court could influence the judge’s decision during Mashinsky’s sentencing.
The former CEO of Celsius acknowledged that he had deceived users regarding the platform’s approval from US regulators and that he had not sold his CEL token holdings.
He consented to the forfeiture of $48 million in proceeds from the scheme.
Cohen-Pavon has been permitted to travel between Israel and New York since he posted a $500,000 surety.
The former Celsius executive was also permitted to travel to Singapore in September by Judge Koeltl, which prompted speculation that he may have attended the Token2049 crypto conference that was scheduled for the same week.
One of the largest crypto platforms to collapse during a market downturn that resulted in millions of users being disconnected from a combined billions of dollars held in accounts was Celsius, which filed for bankruptcy in 2022.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, and Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, were both sentenced to prison time on separate charges.
In November, a bankruptcy judge authorized a reorganization plan for Celsius, which paved the way for debtors to distribute approximately $2 billion to the platform’s creditors.
In September, the organization disclosed its intention to commence consumer reimbursements by 2025.
