According to Matthew Lee, the one-man band behind Inner City Press, the atmosphere in the courtroom for Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky’s case is kind of “meh” compared with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s more dramatic trial.
But Lee reckons that might work in Mashinsky’s favor, potentially leading to a lighter sentence. The disgraced former Celsius boss faces a similar number of fraud charges than SBF did, along with a possible sentence of many decades in prison, in a trial set for later this year.
“He seems more of an older, more solid guy. I know there’s a lot of people that don’t like him but it’s a different vibe,” he says of Mashinsky, adding that his whole aura is a “lot less flashy.”
Lee says Mashinsky is “like many white-collar defendants.” He casually strolls into the courtroom without much attention from the public except for the Celsius victims online, of course. They are pretty keen to know WTF is going on with their funds.
All of this is the complete opposite of Bankman-Fried, according to Lee:
“There’s something uniquely in your face about the Bankman-Fried approach that I think is gonna give him a higher number [of years] than Mashinsky.”
Lee is the beating heart of Inner City Press, which may look like a blog from 1996 that fell through a wormhole in time, but which gained a big audience thanks to its top-notch court coverage. He’s attended every court hearing for Bankman-Fried and Mashinsky over the past year.
His live tweeting of the hearings became a hit in the crypto industry and has garnered him 257,400 followers on X.
Inner City Press post on X regarding Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly intimidating witnesses.
One of the major differences he has noticed is the paparazzi frenzy surrounding Bankman-Fried compared to the relatively low-key attention Mashinsky receives.
There aren’t a “bunch of photographers” waiting for him like there are for Bankman-Fried and his curly locks.
Lee’s got a skill for…
..
