Convicted Oz Media CEO Carlos Watson and his firm have been ordered pay almost $96 million in penalties for his “brazen and audacious” securities fraud, in accordance with a report.
Watson, who co-founded the corporate, should fork over $37 million in restitution in addition to a $59 million forfeiture judgment, in accordance with the ruling in Brooklyn federal courtroom, first reported by Bloomberg Legislation.
A jury convicted Watson final July on prices of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud, together with aggravated identification theft.
He was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
The scheme concerned Oz Media’s co-founder impersonating a YouTube govt on a name with Goldman Sachs bankers to mislead traders, together with former New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and billionaire widow Laurene Powell Jobs.
Watson pleaded not responsible.
He informed The Put up in a press release on Wednesday: “I strongly maintain my innocence.”
Oz collapsed in 2021 after the New York Instances uncovered the fraudulent name.
Prosecutors revealed that Watson misled an investor by claiming that Google CEO Sundar Pichai had supplied to purchase Oz for a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars}.
Pichai later testified that no such discussions ever occurred.
Watson appealed the ruling earlier than restitution and forfeiture had been formally entered.
Watson didn’t contest the federal government’s calculations of economic losses however argued there was no direct causal hyperlink between these losses and the misrepresentations.
Nonetheless, the courtroom decided that the fraud performed a direct position within the monetary hurt suffered by traders.
Decide Eric Komitee in his ruling Sunday acknowledged that Watson and his firm misled traders about Oz’s monetary efficiency, partnerships and investor backing as a way to safe funding and keep afloat.
The prosecution introduced proof demonstrating that every listed sufferer invested as a result of false claims, reinforcing the argument that the fraud was a key issue of their monetary losses.
Watson’s declare that the corporate’s indictment, quite than the fraudulent exercise itself, induced traders’ losses was additionally dismissed by the courtroom.
Komitee famous that given Oz’s monetary instability, it was solely foreseeable that traders who relied on the misrepresentations might lose their whole funding.
The choose additionally acknowledged that Watson and Oz ought to have fairly anticipated that their actions might result in an indictment.
Concerning forfeiture, the choose dominated in favor of the total quantity sought by the federal government, rejecting Watson’s argument that it ought to be diminished by the corporate’s direct prices.
The courtroom decided that the inventory offered to traders held no precise worth, given Oz’s lack of property and the absence of curiosity from third events in its content material library.
“Ozy was a real company with real programs, real revenue, and real corporate governance,” Watson stated in his assertion on Wednesday.
Watson accused federal prosecutors in Brooklyn of getting “concocted this case — 3,000 miles from where Ozy and I actually operated” in California.
In keeping with Watson, the feds had been “relying on a narrative so absurd it would be laughable if it weren’t so serious.”
“This week’s forfeiture and restitution decision, overseen by Judge Eric Komitee — who has deep financial conflicts and could personally benefit from his ruling — was yet another troubling chapter in a case riddled with prosecutorial overreach and judicial bias.”
Watson stated that “this conflicted judge ordered that Ozy and I pay millions of dollars to wealthy lenders who testified under oath that they were fully repaid, plus millions in interest.”
“Meanwhile, my family and I invested $20 million in Ozy and never took a dime. This case is a travesty of justice,” Watson stated.
He has vowed to attraction the decision.
