Monday was the first day of the rest of Neil Cole’s life — and the brand management pioneer is now plotting a comeback.
An appeals court vacated Cole’s conviction for securities fraud, capping an arduous 10-year legal battle that began when he was chief executive officer of Iconix Brand Group.
Along the way Cole — who’s credited with creating the brand management business model — lost the top job at the company he founded. He was accused by a former colleague of cooking the books to inflate revenues at the publicly traded Iconix.
Cole was tried in 2021, partially acquitted and tried again the following year, convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was out on bail while pursuing the appeal he ultimately won on Monday.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled unanimously that the second trial constituted double jeopardy and that the first jury trial settled the matter.
All together, Cole and Iconix are said to have paid more than $150 million in legal fees during the case, which pitted the U.S. government against the executive.
While Cole, an attorney himself, prevailed, he became disillusioned by the long and arduous legal battle against government prosecutors.
“I always believed that the heart of the system was justice and that people really, the courts wanted to get it right,” Cole told WWD. “But I learned that’s not the case. I can only imagine people that don’t have the resources to fight them, which is probably 99 percent of the world. There must be hundreds of thousands of people in jail because they find the target and then they go to everyone around them and threaten them and get them to say what they want. It was just such a frustrating, horrible experience watching the government operate.”
Cole’s attorney, David Marcus, said: “This was lawfare, plain and simple — the government using its power to try to crush someone instead of pursue justice. After years of fighting for Neil’s innocence, the truth finally caught up with them. Justice prevailed.”
Susan Scafidi, founder and director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School, described it as, “Quite a legal roller coaster ride!”
Scafidi said it was unlikely the decision would be overturned with a government appeal to the Supreme Court.
“Cole can celebrate the Second Circuit’s decision with little more than a backward glance to make sure that his lawyers are still watching,” she said. “The more difficult task for Cole will be creating a second act as influential as his first, given that so many companies are now engaged in licensing as a primary business model.”
But Cole is working on that second act.
“I have a lot of new, great ideas,” he said. “Really, I still believe in the brand management model, but believe that there’s a next step. There’s another way to do it. And I put together an innovative team and hopefully we’re going to announce it probably in the next month or two. There’s tremendous opportunity to do it in a new way.”
Reflecting on what he learned during his decade in the courts, Cole said he would advise business leaders to make sure they hire the right people.
“I had an amazing team of people that built the business for 10 years and then we hired a bad apple,” Cole said. “It comes back to the people you surround yourself with. So I encourage everyone to know the people you surround yourself with. I had one disgruntled employee who claimed I did this, and that was the end of my career.”
Cole wasn’t sure how he’d celebrate.
“I’ve literally gotten over a hundred texts and emails and I dreamed of this night, but I don’t know, I could say I’m just going to get very drunk, but then I know I’ll feel bad tomorrow,” he said. “My family’s flying in. Everyone’s coming in from far and wide, so I just have to try to entertain my family and friends and do the best I can — just take a deep breath.”
