Ex-Celsius executive likely to agree to $1.07 million forfeiture as sentencing looms

In a significant development, Roni Cohen-Pavon-former exceutive of now defunct crypto lending platform Celsius-is set to appear in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, days after agreeing to hand over $1.07 million linked to his role in manipulating the price of CEL token.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York confirmed the forfeiture figure in a Tuesday court filing. US Attorney Jay Clayton said Cohen-Pavon consented to a $1,070,000 judgment “representing the amount of proceeds traceable” to his crimes, with credit to be applied for any cash or crypto he held on Celsius that was paid out through the platform’s bankruptcy case.

Cohen-Pavon entered a guilty plea in September 2023, admitting to fraud and conspiracy to commit price manipulation related to the CEL token. In a letter submitted to the judge ahead of sentencing, he did not hold back. “I plead guilty because I am guilty. I participated in the manipulation of the CEL token. I should have stopped it but did not, I could have left but did not. I take full responsibility for this,” he wrote.

Clayton has not pushed for a specific prison term. His filing asked the court to apply sentencing guidelines and grant an “appropriate sentencing reduction for a defendant who has rendered substantial assistance.” Cohen-Pavon’s lawyers went further in April, requesting time served outright and pointing to his cooperation agreement and the role his guilty plea may have played in pushing Mashinsky toward his own.

Mashinsky, the former CEO of Celsius, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2025 for commodity and securities fraud and agreed to forfeit more than $48 million. Celsius’s 2022 collapse was among the most consequential bankruptcies in crypto that year, a period bookended by the implosion of the Terra ecosystem and FTX’s Chapter 11 filing.

In a separate development this week, Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered $10 million in assets tied to Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) directed toward the former FTX CEO’s forfeiture obligations.

Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison and faces a forfeiture order exceeding $11 billion for defrauding FTX users and investors. Kaplan denied his motion for a new trial in April after SBF had argued the judge displayed “manifest prejudice” during his 2023 proceedings.