Carlos Watson, the founder of the digital start-up Ozy Media, was arrested Thursday on fraud charges. Prosecutors say he was part of a scheme to prop up the financially struggling company, which hemorrhaged millions of dollars before it shut down.
The indictment unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn accuses Watson of conspiring to commit securities fraud and wire fraud, as well as identity theft for his role in the impersonation of several media executives.
The SEC said Rao and Ozy’s former chief of staff, Suzee Han, have “agreed to resolve the charges against them,” as they did separately with U.S. prosecutors. Scrutiny over the company deepened after the New York Times reported in October 2021 that an Ozy official had masqueraded as a YouTube executive in a failing attempt to get Goldman Sachs to infuse money into the struggling enterprise.“As alleged, Carlos Watson is a con man whose business strategy was based on outright deceit and fraud,” said Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Brooklyn-based Eastern District of New York.
On multiple occasions, the U.S. attorney’s office said, Watson and his colleagues pretended to be other media executives to cover up earlier misrepresentations. “We allege that over the course of several years, the defendants raised approximately $50 million from victim investors on the basis of fraudulent documents and repeated misrepresentations, including, at least in one case, falsely impersonating a potential business partner during a meeting with an investment bank,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, the SEC’s director of enforcement.
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