Sundar Pichai, the chief government of Google, mentioned in a New York courtroom on Friday that he by no means mentioned a doable takeover of Ozy Media.
Mr. Pichai is the highest-profile witness to testify up to now within the trial of Carlos Watson, the founding father of Ozy who’s accused of misrepresenting his firm’s monetary outcomes, funding and viewers information to buyers and lenders from 2018 to 2021.
The federal government alleged in courtroom filings and at trial that Mr. Watson falsely claimed to a potential investor that Ozy had obtained a $600 million takeover provide from Google. (Whereas the indictment omitted the identify of the corporate, witnesses and paperwork introduced at trial made it clear that Mr. Watson had referred to the search large.)
Mr. Pichai mentioned he interviewed Mr. Watson in February 2021 for a full-time position managing Google’s relationships with information publishers. To simply accept the position, Mr. Watson would have needed to step down from Ozy, which Google acknowledged might hurt the digital media start-up, one other Google government testified on Thursday. As a part of the hiring discussions, Google thought-about investing about $25 million in Ozy “to assist with the transition,” Mr. Pichai testified when he briefly took the stand.
However Mr. Pichai drew a transparent distinction between what Google had really thought-about and an outright acquisition of Ozy. He by no means mentioned a doable takeover — and he by no means floated a $600 million determine, he instructed a jury on Friday in U.S. District Court docket within the Jap District of New York.
Shannon Frison, a protection counsel for Ozy, denied the federal government’s allegation that Mr. Watson had instructed an investor a few $600 million takeover provide from Google, calling the declare “unequivocally unfaithful,” in a press release on Friday.
“He by no means had such a dialog with Google and by no means instructed any individual that he did,” Ms. Frison mentioned.
Mr. Watson has pleaded not responsible to all the fees towards him. If convicted, he might resist 37 years in jail.
Mr. Watson, a former MSNBC anchor, began Ozy in 2013, publishing information articles alongside podcast and tv productions. Ozy secured commitments from outstanding buyers at a time when digital publishers, like BuzzFeed and Vice, have been raking in billions of {dollars} primarily based on valuations that largely didn’t pan out.
On the coronary heart of the federal legal trial is an incident in 2021 during which Mr. Watson’s deputy misled Goldman Sachs staff throughout a fund-raising name by impersonating a YouTube government. The revelation of the decision precipitated the collapse of Ozy.
Protection attorneys for Mr. Watson and Ozy blamed his deputy, Samir Rao, for the impersonated telephone name and for misrepresenting Ozy’s financials to potential buyers. Ms. Frison mentioned in her opening assertion in Could that Mr. Rao was “incompetent for the position that he was serving.”
Mr. Rao and Suzee Han, a former Ozy chief of employees, pleaded responsible final yr to fraud expenses.
Mr. Watson’s protection continued to level a finger at Mr. Rao throughout cross-examinations this week, urgent the prosecution’s witnesses about Mr. Watson’s private involvement within the alleged unlawful conduct.
“Mr. Rao dealt with the entire financials, the displays to buyers, he was within the background with the numbers,” Ms. Frison mentioned in her opening assertion, including that he “made some essential errors that the federal government is now mentioning as in some way a conspiracy.”
Attorneys for Mr. Watson additionally argued that whereas the founders of BuzzFeed and Vice engaged in the identical conduct that Ozy executives did to draw investments, prosecutors have gone after Mr. Watson as a result of he’s Black.
Mr. Pichai’s look in federal courtroom in Brooklyn adopted testimony from Mr. Rao, potential Ozy buyers and several other individuals implicated within the fund-raising name.
Allison Berardo, a former Goldman Sachs worker who was on the receiving finish of the deceptive name, testified on Thursday that she felt “violated” when she realized the particular person on the opposite line was not actually Alex Piper, the YouTube government that Mr. Rao was pretending to be.
“I had by no means skilled something like this in my life,” Ms. Berardo instructed the jury.
The allegations towards Ozy prolong far past the decision with Goldman Sachs staff. Tripti Thakur, who served because the chief monetary officer of Ozy for 3 months in 2019, took the stand on Thursday to explain an e mail during which Mr. Rao despatched an allegedly faux contract with the Oprah Winfrey Community to a possible financial institution lender.
Protection legal professionals mentioned Mr. Watson was not included on that 2019 e mail, doubling down on their place that he shouldn’t be punished for his former colleague’s conduct.
The trial is anticipated to run till the top of July.
