Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson is guilty of fraud

Carlos Watson and the now-shuttered Ozy Media startup helium co-founded were recovered blameworthy of fraud by a national assemblage connected Tuesday, arsenic reported earlier by The New York Times. Over the people of a respective weeks-long trial, the assemblage heard the government’s claims that Ozy Media misled investors by falsifying fiscal records, inflating assemblage numbers, and adjacent making up concern deals.

Watson, the erstwhile CEO of Ozy Media, co-founded the institution alongside Samir Rao successful 2013. The institution launched an online magazine, newsletter, and an yearly league successful New York City, each portion striking high-profile partnerships and receiving millions successful investments.

But things came to a halt erstwhile a 2021 nonfiction from The New York Times’ media columnist Ben Smith reported that Rao impersonated a YouTube enforcement during a telephone with a Goldman Sachs banker astir a imaginable $40 cardinal investment. Rao pleaded guilty to related charges past twelvemonth and is awaiting sentencing.

Additionally, prosecutors alleged that Watson lied to a prospective capitalist by saying that Google offered $600 cardinal to instrumentality implicit the media startup. According to testimony from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, the institution lone considered investing $25 cardinal arsenic portion of a imaginable program to prosecute Watson. During the trial, Watson’s lawyers blamed Rao and Ozy Media’s employees for the fraudulent activity, NYT reports.

“The assemblage recovered that Watson was a con antheral who told prevarication upon prevarication upon prevarication to deceive investors into buying banal successful his company,” Breon Peace, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said successful a statement. “Watson invented phony fiscal figures and caused others to forge fake contracts and impersonate a media executive.”

Watson was charged with conspiracy to perpetrate securities fraud, conspiracy to perpetrate ligament fraud, and aggravated individuality theft. He faces up to 37 years successful prison.