Ex CEO Max International Pleads Guilty To Tax Evasion

According to an article in the Deseret News:

The former CEO of a Utah-based nutrition supplement company pleaded guilty Thursday to tax evasion.

Peter Nordberg, 61, was indicted by a federal grand jury in January with two counts of attempted income tax evasion, each carrying a statutory minimum sentence of five years in prison. He pleaded guilty to one of the counts Thursday, admitting to not paying $275,790 in taxes over two years.

Between September 2007 and December 2011, Nordberg served as the chief executive officer of Max International, a Utah-based multilevel marketing company that manufactures and sells nutritional supplements.

In addition to his annual salary of $331,336 in 2009, Nordberg received a portion of the company’s commissions as a bonus, bringing his income to $822,647, according to the indictment.

Federal prosecutors say Nordberg, a Draper resident at the time, set up a limited liability company in Delaware under the name MAX MLM Partners and had his bonuses deposited into an associated bank account. Nordberg directed employees at Max International to report the money as non-employee compensation.

Nordberg did not report the bonus income on his taxes, according to the indictment, and repeated the practice in 2010.

With interest and penalties, court documents indicate Nordberg now owes $335,201 in restitution.

In a 2006 biography for Nordberg on Max International’s former website, Nordberg was credited with “more than 25 years of executive management, sales management and operations experience, predominantly in the high technology field ranging from start-up organizations to privately and publicly held multi-billion dollar organizations.”

In the months prior to Nordberg’s departure from Max International, the company settled a $1.2 million lawsuit with its Idaho Falls based rival, Melaluca.

Max International was accused of poaching Melaluca’s marketing executives and then conspiring to have those former workers breach their contracts with the company by recruiting other sales people.

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