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by Mike Caswell

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against Glen Leibowitz, a New York accountant who served as the chief financial officer to Canadian Securities Exchange listing Acreage Holdings Inc. in 2019. The SEC claims that Mr. Leibowitz helped to fraudulently inflate the company's cash position by $4.1-million. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) He was part of a scheme that involved transferring a large amount of money just ahead of the company's year-end and then lying to directors and the auditor, the SEC says.

The allegations are contained in a civil complaint that the SEC released on Monday, March 17. The complaint identifies Mr. Leibowitz, 55, as a certified public accountant who has been licensed in New York since 1996. He was the CFO of Acreage from March, 2018, to April, 2021.

The case arises from a scheme that occurred in late 2019, when Acreage's management was concerned about the company's cash balance. With Acreage being a cannabis listing, cash was an important measure for investors. At the time, bank loans and other traditional forms of financing were not readily available to cannabis companies.

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