Lindsay Lohan Being Charged In A Major Financial Crime
Lindsay Lohan, along with some other celebrities, is being charged by the SEC with failing to report they were being paid to endorse cryptocurrencies.
Lindsay Lohan is one of several celebrities charged by the Securities Exchange Commission in connection with their endorsement of cryptocurrencies, something Kim Kardashian had to deal with last year. As The Hollywood Reporter details, Lohan is named along with several other celebrities, including Ne-Yo, Akon, Soulja Boy, social media personality Jake Paul, Lil Yachty, Austin Mahone, and adult film actor Kendra Lust. According to the charges, these celebrity endorsers not only failed to disclose publicly both that their endorsements were paid and, per SEC rules, the amounts they were paid, but did so at the specific direction of Justin Sun, who ran the scheme.
But Netflix has also been responsible for a comeback for Lindsay Lohan, with her Christmas movie scoring high viewing rates, not to mention a global revival on the streaming service for her 2007 film I Know Who Killed Me. After so many personal and commercial troubles for the once-brightly-shining Mean Girls star, it was refreshing for a while to see her doing well again. And that’s not to say she won’t continue to find success, but it’s disappointing to see her and so many other celebrities caught up in this crypto scam.
Lindsay Lohan and others perhaps can’t be blamed too much for their apparent ignorance of SEC guidelines regarding crypto, since so few people still even understand how the currency and its market works. Lindsay and most of those charged are paying more than $400,000 for their role in the scheme, which involved Sun’s companies, Rainberry Inc., BitTorrent Foundation Ltd., and Tron Foundation Limited. The con is a well-worn one that misleads investors by failing to comply with SEC disclosure rules and using the pull of endorsements to help sway the market toward the same securities.
In essence, Lohan, Paul, Ne-Yo, and others, were paid to be used as leverage to manipulate the market.
In addition to Lindsay Lohan and those connected with Sun, THR also reports that such notable public figures as Kim Kardashian, Larry David, and Tom Brady have all recently felt the sting of fallout from their involvement with crypto companies. Brady and David are among those who have been sued for their promotion of the now-bankrupt crypto firm FTX, while Kardashian paid $1.2 million in a settlement for her promotion of the EMA token. Hopefully, these high-profile cases will give other stars pause to have their attorneys check the SEC guidelines before signing up to shill for Dogecoin or whatever other currency someone decides to cook up.
We’re hopeful that Lindsay Lohan can continue her career’s upward climb, maybe even with an appearance in a Marvel movie? Perhaps once this incident is behind her, things can really start looking up. Between hackers, scammers, and immense drains on the power grid, cryptocurrencies are looking less and less like a secure or sustainable investment, and the presence of apparently unscrupulous characters like Justin Sun doesn’t help.
Lohan would do well to find safer endorsements—and possibly another Netflix Christmas movie—from now on.
