The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed a settled complaint charging Las Vegas-based nutritional supplement company MusclePharm Corp.’s former Executive Vice President of Sales and Operations, Brian H. Casutto, former Vice President of Sales, Matthew J. Zucco, and former contract Chief Financial Officer, Kevin R. Harris, for engaging in improper revenue recognition practices to achieve revenue growth demanded by its former Chief Executive Officer, Ryan C. Drexler. The SEC also separately charged Drexler with fraud in a litigated complaint for disclosure violations and control failures.
The SEC’s settled complaint alleges that Casutto, with the assistance of Zucco, engaged in a fraudulent scheme to prematurely recognize revenue for orders that remained in MusclePharm’s control. The complaint further alleges that Harris should have known that MusclePharm prematurely recognized certain revenue and that MusclePharm overstated other revenue by misclassifying customer credits as advertising expenses rather than as reductions to revenue. The defendants’ misconduct allegedly inflated the company’s publicly reported quarterly revenues by as much as 25 percent and gross profits by as much as 49 percent.
Source: SEC.gov | SEC Charges Former MusclePharm Executives with Accounting and Disclosure Fraud
