Photo Credit: Jens De Decker
Former rap mogul Russell Simmons has reached an agreement with the Justice Department to recover a portion of a Celsius stock (NASDAQ: CELH) tranche worth north of $350 million.
The DOJ, Simmons, and different parties yet recently made that settlement official – albeit without publicly shedding light on the precise number of shares obtained by the Def Jam co-founder.
But overall, following a 2023 three-for-one stock split, Simmons and others were asserting stakes in a total of 9.98 million CELH shares. As for Simmons’ claimed interest – and the involvement of the federal government – his Nu Horizons Investment Group in or around 2015 inked an operating agreement with Tim Leissner.
Then a Goldman Sachs banker and later a convicted felon, Leissner promptly ran with Simmons’ plans to begin scooping up Celsius stock via Nu Horizons. (This description, it bears noting, comes from legal docs submitted by Simmons.)
Fast forward to 2018, when Leissner, entangled in the 1MDB scandal, pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
As part of his deal with prosecutors, the Germany native agreed to forfeit $43.7 million in assets – including the Celsius stock – but was sentenced to just two years in federal prison.
(A pertinent parenthetical: Leissner had initially used the Celsius holding to secure his $20 million pre-trial release bond. Furthermore, he married Kimora Lee, Simmons’ wife between 1998 and 2009, in 2014; Lee and Leissner are reportedly in the process of divorcing.)
Fast forward once more, this time to 2023, when the aforementioned parties – Lee and Simmons chief among them – formally moved to secure portions of the stock at hand. The short version is that the legal filings proceeded to fly as they vied for the shares; the U.S. government last month settled with Lee and Simmons, affording each a “Redacted” piece of the Celsius pie.
It probably won’t come as a surprise that the convoluted episode didn’t quite end with the newly signed-and-sealed settlement order.
First, letting Leissner’s amended forfeiture order take the wheel for a moment, the government seemingly has the right to make up for the distributed stock by seizing different of the individual’s assets.
“Further, if any third party files a claim to the Celsius Shares,” a relevant forfeiture order line reads, “the defendant will assist the government in defending such claims.
“If the Celsius Shares or Forfeiture Money Judgment, or any portion thereof, are not forfeited to the United States, the United States may seek to enforce this Amended Preliminary Order against any other assets of the defendant up to the value of the Celsius Shares, and the outstanding balance of the Forfeiture Money Judgment,” the text continues.
Time will tell where the “may seek to enforce” cards fall; a few delays later, Leissner only started serving his sentence in early February.
Meanwhile, Indonesia-based Simmons won’t be pocketing all the Celsius stock heading his way; the self-described yogi “has committed to using the” shares “to pay certain of his creditors before” personally receiving whatever’s left.
Said creditors refer to multiple women who accused him of sexual assault; as of 2025, in connection with related settlements, he still owed several alleged victims a total of about $8 million, per the LA Times.
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