A whistleblower-retaliation lawsuit filed Tuesday claims the Instagram playboy potentially spent the company's millions to entertain himself.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA , US, July 8, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ -- – A whistleblower-retaliation lawsuit filed today claims that Instagram playboy Dan Bilzerian’s cannabis company, Ignite International, Ltd., funded such extravagant personal expenses as a $40,000 rock climbing wall, a $15,000 ping-pong table, and a $130,340 Bahamas photo shoot -- and then fired the company president for refusing to approve the expenses.

The former president, Curtis Heffernan, also claims in his Superior Court lawsuit that he refused to misclassify a Paycheck Protection Program government loan as “miscellaneous income” on Ignite’s balance sheets. Forbes reported on Tuesday that Ignite lost $50 million last year and is likely to fail.

“He traveled the world with a harem of models that would make Hugh Hefner jealous, expecting that the company would cover it all,” said Heffernan’s lawyer, Tamara Freeze, founder of the employment law firm Workplace Justice Advocates, which filed the complaint with Lim Law Group.

However, an outside auditor flagged the models, and nearly $1 million of the company’s money as suspicious expenses, such as lavish trips and a $18,000 liquor tab for a Valentine’s Day party, Bilzerian expected the company to quickly rubber stamp them as “business expenses” -- and when Mr. Heffernan refused to do that and participate in financial fraud, they fired him.

Heffernan, a former executive at Procter & Gamble, opposed attempts to inflate revenue and “raised serious concerns of financial fraud,” according to the complaint. Only two days after Heffernan refused a company board member’s request to “promptly confirm” the questionable lavish expenses by Bilzerian, the company fired him, the lawsuit says.

Ironically, Ignite has both a Whistleblower Policy to protect employees from retaliation if they report “questionable accounting or auditing practices,” and a Code of Business Conduct and Ethics prohibiting misappropriation of company assets, the lawsuit says. However, “such rules are meaningless when Bilzerian’s lifestyle expenses are under attack,” said Lim Law Group Founder Preston Lim.

About Workplace Justice Advocates
Workplace Justice Advocates, PLC, of Orange County and Los Angeles has won tens of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements in wrongful termination and retaliation cases, including a $25 million dollar verdict in a whistleblower retaliation case in 2017.

About Lim Law Group
Lim Law Group, P.C. of Los Angeles has won millions of dollars in recovery for its clients. The employment law firm represents employees and specializes in wrongful termination, retaliation and wage and hour matters.

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