Hyunjin Lerner, Accounting and Securities Fraud, Florida 2024

A former vice president of finance for Bankrate Inc., a publicly traded financial services and marketing company headquartered in New York City, has been charged with participating in a complex accounting and securities fraud scheme.

According to an indictment filed yesterday, Hyunjin Lerner, 48, of Martin County, Florida, is accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, falsifying a public company’s books, records, and accounts, and making false statements to a public company’s accountants.

Lerner, who previously worked at Bankrate’s offices in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, made his initial appearance earlier today before U.S. Magistrate Judge John J. O’Sullivan of the Southern District of Florida and was released on bond.

The indictment alleges that between 2011 and 2014, Lerner and his co-conspirators carried out a complex scheme to manipulate Bankrate’s financial statements and artificially inflate Bankrate’s earnings. According to the indictment, Lerner and his co-conspirators allegedly engaged in ‘cookie jar’ or ‘cushion’ accounting, meaning unsupported expense accruals were left on Bankrate’s books and then selectively reversed in later quarters to meet earnings goals.

In addition, Lerner and his co-conspirators allegedly misrepresented certain company expenses as ‘deal costs’ in order to artificially inflate publicly reported adjusted earnings metrics, booked hundreds of thousands of dollars in unsupported revenue to further inflate Bankrate’s reported revenue and earnings, and made materially false statements to conceal the improper accounting entries from Bankrate’s auditors, shareholders, and the investing public.

An indictment is merely an allegation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.

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