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The public image of Hollywood power couple Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis has continued to take a beating this week, as the pair have now been fined $1 million by the SEC.
According to an official press release from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Kutcher and Kunis owe $1 million in fines after they were found to have been “making unregistered offers of crypto asset securities” and “misleading investors for their new series Stoner Cats.”
The announcement from the SEC comes after the pair have been dragged through the mud in recent days for their decision to write letters in support of convicted rapist Danny Masterson.
“I do not believe he is an ongoing harm to society and having his daughter raised without a present father would a tertiary injustice in and of itself,” Kutcher said of Masterson.
To make matters worse, the couple then released an incredibly stiff and disingenuous apology video.
As for their issues with the SEC, the fines stem from the duo allegedly violating the Securities Act of 1933 with promises that NFTs purchased from their animated series Stoner Cats could be resold at a much higher value.
The project sold more than 10,000 NFTs for a profit of $8 million in order to finance the animated series, but in doing so, the SEC claimed, they violated the Securities Act of 1933 “by offering and selling these crypto asset securities to the public in an unregistered offering that was not exempt from registration.”
The series’ creative team allegedly claimed that an advantage of purchasing one of their NFTs was that the buyer could resell it at a much higher value in the future.
According to the SEC, this boasting led investors “to expect profits because a successful web series could cause the resale value of the Stoner Cats NFTs in the secondary market to rise.” [via The New York Post]
Masterson, who starred with Kunis and Kutcher on the sitcom That 70’s Show, was sentenced to 30 years in prison last week after being convicted on two charges of forcible rape.
The court found that, on at least three occasions between 2001 and 2002, Masterson drugged his victims before raping them.
“Mr. Masterson, you are not the victim here. Your actions 20 years ago took away another person’s voice and choice. Your actions 20 years ago were criminal, and that is why you are here,” presiding Judge Charlaine Olmedo said during the sentencing hearing in early September.
At this time, neither Kutcher nor Kunis have addressed the fines. Furthermore, the NFT market has all but collapsed in on itself, with celebrities like Justin Bieber now owning NFTs that are worth in the neighborhood of $50,000 after originally being purchased for north of $1 million.