Neil Cole is going on the offense.

After 10 years of defending himself in court, the licensing pioneer and founder of Iconix Brands Group is suing the company and its former chief operating officer, Seth Horowitz, for a total of $45 million.

It’s a significant turning of the page for Cole, who last month was cleared by an appeals court, which vacated his securities fraud conviction , ruling that he should not have been tried a second time after a jury did not convict him the first time around in 2021. He had been sentenced to 18 months in prison after his second trial the following year, but was out on bail for the appeal.

“Starting in August 2015, plaintiff Neil Cole had his life and his life’s work effectively ripped away from him based on abject lies,” according to the suit filed

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