Ex-Celsius executive pleads guilty to four charges

Cohen-Pavon has a chance of leniency in sentencing depending on cooperation against Mashinsky

article-image

TK6photo/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Roni Cohen-Pavon, former chief revenue officer at Celsius, pled guilty to four charges according to multiple reports on Thursday.

Bloomberg reported that the charges included fraud, securities price manipulation and conspiracy. His sentencing is set for December 2024, and he has a chance of leniency depending on his cooperation in the case against his former boss, Alex Mashinsky. 

Cohen-Pavon and former CEO Mashinsky are accused of inflating “the price of Celsius’s proprietary token, CEL,” in a July Department of Justice indictment.

The DOJ claims that both Mashinsky and Cohen-Pavon discussed artificially inflating Celsius (CEL) in WhatsApp messages.

“We’re not just sitting and watching the price. We’re on it all week and even now [another Celsius executive] and I are live with the market maker. The issue is that people are selling and no one is buying except for us,” Mashinsky allegedly said.

Cohen-Pavon is named as a co-defendant in the DOJ’s suit against Mashinsky, who also stands accused of defrauding investors. He faces a suit from the Federal Trade Commission as well as the DOJ.

An unsealed order in September showed that prosecutors froze Mashinsky’s assets in August.

Mashinsky’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the FTC suit on Tuesday, Sept. 12, claiming that the FTC does not “allege a violation of an FTC rule.”

However, lawyers for his co-defendant Hanoch Goldstein said, “Mashinsky was responsible for leading almost all of the acts of misconduct alleged in the Complaint, including conducting weekly marketing and advertising videos called ‘Ask Mashinsky Anything.”

Mashinsky’s legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Cohen-Pavon’s plea.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) represent low-hanging fruit in a massive market ripe for Web3-driven disruption. The global CDN market was valued at ~$28B in 2024, and is projected to surpass $140B by 2034, (18.75% CAGR) underscoring the immense demand for efficient content delivery.

article-image

US dollars might technically be worth less, but it’s still good news

article-image

Apps are doing well, as is casino gaming, says Tom Schmidt of Dragonfly

article-image

Sponsored

Machine DeFi brings programmable peer-to-peer finance into contact with tangible machines that generate real-world value

article-image

What happens to your investment portfolio when the companies driving returns are no longer in it?

article-image

Wow, the ETF hype sure didn’t last long

article-image

The private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June; analysts had projected payrolls to add 100,000 positions