Carlos Watson, the founder and former CEO of Ozy Media, is not going to prison after all.
Watson, who was sentenced to 116 months, or nearly ten years, in prison for conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft has had his prison sentence commuted by President Trump. He also no longer has to pay $96M in restitution and forfeiture as a result of the commutation.
Watson launched the digital lifestyle and news site in 2012. The sentence was made in December 2024 – before Trump took office – by United States District Judge Eric R. Komitee in federal court in Brooklyn following Watson’s conviction in July after an eight-week trial. Watson pleaded not guilty.
The trial showed that between 2018 and 2021 Watson and Ozy Media co-conspirators orchestrated a scheme to defraud investors out of tens of millions of dollars through fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions about Ozy’s financial performance, including revenue, cash on hand and profit, ongoing business relationships with celebrities, acquisition prospects from high- profile technology and media corporations, contract negotiations and other corporate metrics.
Court filing showed that Watson and his co-conspirators, who were being tried separately, lied to prospective investors about who else might be investing in Ozy, the existence and size of acquisition offers received by Ozy, the existence and timing of financing rounds, and the existence and terms of Ozy’s business contracts, directing Ozy employees to create fake contracts with forged signatures to provide in due diligence.
One of the strangest claims was that on multiple occasions, when faced with questions from lenders or potential investors, Watson and his co-conspirators assumed the identities of and impersonated actual media company executives to cover up their prior fraudulent misrepresentations. In particular, Ozy co-founder and chief operating officer Samir Rao had misrepresented himself on a call with Goldman Sachs by pretending to be a YouTube executive, Alex Piper. The idea was to put Ozy in a positive light as it sought an investment from the bank.
“Carlos Watson orchestrated a years-long, audacious scheme to defraud investors and lenders to his company, Ozy Media, out of tens of millions of dollars,” Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said in December. “His incessant and deliberate lies demonstrated not only a brazen disregard for the rule of law, but also a contempt for the values of honesty and fairness that should underlie American entrepreneurship. On far too many occasions, Watson chose deceit over candor, grasping for the illusion of business success and personal acclaim at any cost. Today’s sentence should serve as a warning to those who would engage in fraud that justice will be swift and certain.”
