Ozy Media co-founder Carlos Watson arrested on federal fraud fees

Ozy Media CEO Carlos Watson, a journalist, entrepreneur and tv host, was arrested on Thursday and charged with deceptive buyers about income and projections, authorities stated.

The anchor-turned-CEO was busted after a former startup accomplice pleaded responsible to fraud fees in a secret federal court docket continuing, in response to prosecutors.

Watson was arrested by the FBI at a Manhattan lodge and is scheduled to be arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Courtroom on fees of conspiring to commit securities fraud and conspiring to commit wiring fraud, authorities stated.

Watson, 53, “engaged in a scheme to defraud Ozy’s potential buyers, potential acquirers, lenders and potential lenders” by misrepresenting the corporate’s viewers numbers and monetary outcomes, prosecutors for the Jap District of New York stated in a court docket doc dated Wednesday.

“Carlos Watson is a con man whose enterprise technique was based mostly on outright deceit and fraud — he ran Ozy as a felony group relatively than as a good media firm,” U.S. Breon Lawyer Peace stated in an announcement.

The corporate introduced plans to close down in 2021 after the New York Instances reported Ozy co-founder Samir Rao had impersonated a YouTube govt throughout a February enterprise name with Goldman Sachs.

However the content-creation firm determined to maintain its operations going.

Rao, Ozy’s chief working officer, and Suzee Han, Ozy’s chief of workers from June 2019 to October 2021, beforehand pleaded responsible to fees referring to their roles within the scheme, officers stated.

Prosecutors stated Watson was conscious of Rao’s impersonation and, over a sequence of textual content messages, instructed him about what to say throughout the name.

In line with an indictment, Watson dedicated the fraud to safe tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in investments and loans to offset the fledgling firm’s mounting debt.

The corporate executives cast paperwork, faked financials and impersonated media executives in a determined bid to maintain the struggling firm afloat, in response to the indictment.

Watson pleaded not responsible at his arraignment and was launched on a $1 million bond. A federal decide stated he couldn’t contact Ozy staff or elevate cash for the corporate.

Watson and Rao co-founded Ozy in 2013. The model creates content material comparable to podcasts and TV sequence, together with “Black Girls OWN the Dialog” on the Oprah Winfrey Community and “The Contenders: 16 for ‘16″ on PBS.