NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York’s attorney general on Thursday filed a civil lawsuit accusing Celsius Network founder Alex Mashinsky of scheming to defraud hundreds of thousands of investors by inducing them to deposit billions of dollars in digital assets with his cryptocurrency company.
The lawsuit filed in a New York state court in Manhattan accuses Mashinsky of violating the state’s Martin Act, which gives Attorney General Letitia James broad power to pursue civil and criminal cases over securities fraud, and other laws. It seeks unspecified damages and other remedies.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York)