President Trump commuted on Friday the punishment of Carlos Watson, a co-founder of the nowed digital media company Ozy Media, on the day he would surrender to the prison, said three people who were familiar with the case.
Watson was sentenced in December to almost 10 years in prison for trying to cheat investors and lenders by lying about the finances of the company. He was convicted after a federal jury last summer sentenced Mr Watson and Ozy Media of conspiracy to commit effects and wire fraud. The jury also condemned Mr Watson for identity theft, after a two -month process in which witnesses a simulating telephone conversation, manufactured contracts and misleading claims about the income from Ozy from 2018 to 2021.
A federal judge had also ordered Mr Watson and Ozy to pay $ 96 million in refund and forfeiture. Watson and Ozy also no longer have to pay those financial fines, people said.
Mr. Watson had not argued guilty and continued to apply his innocence until he was sentenced to 116 months. His commutation was previously reported by CNBC.
Watson said in a statement that “President Trump was deeply grateful for correcting this serious injustice.”
Watson started Ozy in 2013 and published news articles and newsletters before they venture into podcasts and television productions. The start-up-protected obligations of prominent investors at a time when digital publishers, such as BuzzFeed and Vice, attracted billions of dollars in investments that were largely unable.
During legal proceedings, Mr. Watson denied the accusations of fraud. In the court, his lawyers argued that his statements for investors were based on good wedding reviews of Ozy's finances, and they shifted the fault for some fraudulent activity to other former Ozy employees. When he took the position during his trial, Mr. Watson said that he had not deliberately blown up the estimates of income, but had previously presented the types of service -based income that were typical of a “filthy young company” in the early years.
During his hearing in December, Mr. Watson repeated his position that the government selectively prosecuted him because he is a black man.
Samir Rao, the other founder of Ozy, and Suzee Han, a former staff chef, pleaded guilty in 2023 to fraud and testified against Mr. Watson.
The core of the case was a fundraising call from 2021 in which Mr. Rao Goldman misled Sachs employees by presenting himself as a YouTube director, as reported for the first time by the New York Times. Public prosecutors argued that Mr Watson had helped to set up the call, using SMS messages that he sent to Mr. Rao, according to them, a script came down to what to say. Watson denied any responsibility.
Witnesses also witnessed that Mr. Watson had misunderstood Ozy's finances to guarantee investments, to blow up income figures and present misleading claims of obligations from Oprah Winfrey and Live Nation Entertainment.
This week, Mr. Trump will also decorate the three founders of the Cryptocurrency Exchange Bitmex, who was guilty in 2022 for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, one of the people familiar with the case, said, as well as Trevor Milton, who was convicted by a federal jury of defrauding.
