NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson was sentenced on Monday to nearly 10 years in prison, after a jury found him guilty in July of lying to investors about the now-defunct startup’s finances and sham deals with Google and Oprah Winfrey.
U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee handed down the 116-month sentence at a hearing in Brooklyn federal court.
Federal prosecutors said Watson and his California-based news and entertainment company falsified information about Ozy’s finances and audience size, fabricated contracts and inflated earnings projections to court investors.
“Watson chose deceit over candor, grasping for the illusion of business success and personal acclaim at any cost,” Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement.
Watson, a former cable news anchor and investment banker, had pleaded not guilty. His lawyer had told jurors at the trial that he was betrayed by deputies who acted on their own and kept him in the dark about their wrongdoing.
Prosecutors had sought a 17-year prison term for Watson, arguing he “directed a years-long brazen and audacious scheme to defraud investors and lenders” and had not accepted responsibility.
Watson’s defense lawyers had urged Komitee to spare him prison time beyond the mandatory two-year term for identity theft, arguing he was innocent and that the case should not have been brought.
Watson’s lawyer Andrew Frisch said during Monday’s hearing that Watson’s genuine commitment to Ozy’s mission set him apart from typical fraud defendants motivated by greed.
“What distinguishes Mr. Watson is his motivation and his vision,” Frisch said.
Founded in 2013, Ozy imploded in 2021 after news reports questioned its audience numbers and revealed that a top executive had impersonated a YouTube executive during a call with Goldman Sachs bankers in which he claimed the streaming site agreed to pay for exclusive rights to an Ozy show.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
