Carlos Watson, Ozy Media Co-Founder, Is Sentenced to Almost 10 Years in Prison
Carlos Watson, a co-founder of the now-defunct digital media company Ozy Media, was sentenced on Monday to almost 10 years in prison for trying to defraud investors and lenders by lying about the company’s finances.The sentence came five months after a federal jury convicted Mr.Watson and Ozy Media of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud.
The jury also convicted Mr.Watson of identity theft, following a two-month trial during which witnesses detailed an impersonated phone call, fabricated contracts and misleading claims about Ozy’s earnings from 2018 to 2021.Mr.
Watson, who had pleaded not guilty and continued to assert his innocence up until his sentence, faced a maximum of 37 years in prison.Government prosecutors had requested a 17-year sentence and $65.6 million in forfeiture to the government.“The fact that we’re here in this circumstance is tragic,” said Judge Eric Komitee of the U.S.
District Court for the Eastern District of New York, who presided over the case and imposed the sentence.“But it’s a tragedy of Mr.
Watson’s own making.”Mr.Watson started Ozy in 2013, publishing news articles and newsletters before venturing into podcasts and television productions.
The start-up secured commitments from prominent investors at a time when digital publishers, like BuzzFeed and Vice, attracted billions of dollars in investments that largely didn’t pan out.Throughout the legal proceedings, Mr.Watson denied the fraud allegations.
In court, his lawyers argued that his representations to investors had been based on good-faith assessments of Ozy’s finances, and they shifted the blame for any fraudulent activity onto other former Ozy employees.When he took the stand at his trial, Mr.
Watson said that he did not intentionally inflate revenue estimates, but rather presented the types of service-based income typical of a “scrappy young company” in its early years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable Java...