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by Mike Caswell

Ignite International Brands Ltd. and its former accountant, Scott Rohleder, have asked a federal judge in California to drop charges they face for a $4.6-million revenue manipulation scheme from 2020. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) Ignite and Mr. Rohleder say that the case is based on "misleading and self-serving" claims from a product distributor. That distributor has been trying to avoid paying for product that it purchased, and provided false information to investigators, the company says.

The claims from Ignite and Mr. Rohleder come as part of a case that federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have been pursuing over a scheme in which the company reported sales that never occurred. According to the government, Ignite sent a distributor a large amount of product just ahead of its year-end in 2020. The distributor never paid for the product, while Ignite reported that it had achieved the "highest monthly sales in the Company's history."

As Ignite and Mr. Rohleder see things, prosecutors have twisted those events into a scheme to inflate the company's sales. In a motion to dismiss filed on Tuesday, March 11, they say that prosecutors filed the charges after talking to the distribution company, only referred to as "Company 1."

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