The 2010s had been a frothy time for digital publishing. Billions of {dollars} flowed into publishers like BuzzFeed and Vice, with large media firms and enterprise capitalists betting these start-ups would ultimately make plenty of cash.
For probably the most half, these enormous earnings had been a pipe dream. However regardless of the misplaced cash, upset traders and a slew of adverse press protection, the executives who based these firms by no means needed to reply for his or her conduct in a courtroom. Till now.
The jury trial of Carlos Watson, who’s charged with making an attempt to defraud traders within the digital media start-up he co-founded, Ozy Media, is scheduled to start Monday with jury choice in federal courtroom in Brooklyn. Mr. Watson has pleaded not responsible to all the costs in opposition to him. If convicted, he may resist 37 years in jail.
It stays unclear what Mr. Watson’s protection shall be when the trial begins, or whether or not he’ll take the stand. However one of many arguments his lawyer has made in courtroom filings main as much as the trial is uncommon: The allegations contain the identical “puffing and bluffing” practiced by the founders of BuzzFeed and Vice, however prosecutors singled out Mr. Watson for punishment as a result of he’s a Black man.
“Their founders reportedly — and in some instances, admittedly — engaged in conduct that differs from the conduct charged in Mr. Watson’s indictment in just one method,” his legal professionals argued in a authorized submitting from August. “Their conduct was, by orders of magnitude, much more egregious. And but they haven’t been indicted.”
A choose in April rejected Mr. Watson’s movement that the costs be dismissed due to discriminatory prosecution.
“Carlos Watson is harmless of all costs, and we look ahead to a jury making that willpower in courtroom,” stated his protection counsel, Ronald Sullivan Jr.
Prosecutors declined to remark. The trial is predicted to stretch into the summer time.
Mr. Watson, a former MSNBC anchor, started publishing Ozy in 2013 with backing from distinguished traders just like the hedge fund supervisor Marc Lasry and Emerson Collective, the group run by the billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs. Ozy printed newsletters and on-line information articles, typically specializing in tendencies and personalities it deemed “the brand new and the following.” The corporate additionally produced podcasts and tv exhibits.
However in 2021, Ben Smith, then a media columnist for The New York Occasions, revealed that Mr. Watson’s deputy, Samir Rao, had misled Goldman Sachs workers throughout a name that February as the corporate was elevating cash. Beneath scrutiny, Ozy started to falter, and workers members fled.
The corporate shut down however a model of its web site has continued to limp alongside beneath the shadow of the fraud allegations dealing with Mr. Watson.
Mr. Watson was arrested in February 2023 and charged with fraud and aggravated identification theft. In the indictment, filed in U.S. District Courtroom within the Jap District of New York, prosecutors detailed how Ozy began to tackle debt in 2018 as its funding was working out and its digital media enterprise failed to herald sufficient income.
Federal prosecutors say that from 2018 to 2021, Mr. Watson, together with Mr. Rao and different executives, tried to herald extra money by misrepresenting Ozy’s monetary outcomes, funding and viewers knowledge to traders and lenders. Mr. Watson knowingly inflated income numbers to traders and potential traders quite a few occasions, the indictment stated, and gave deceptive details about contributors in a financing spherical.
“Just about all the cash raised within the Sequence C” spherical, about $13 million, was raised by way of misrepresentations by Ozy, the criticism stated.
Prosecutors have argued that Mr. Watson cast a contract for a second season of an Ozy TV present to attempt to get a financial institution mortgage, prompting Ozy’s chief monetary officer to resign and write to Mr. Watson in an e-mail: “This … is unlawful. That is fraud.”
The indictment stated Mr. Watson had instructed Mr. Rao to impersonate an govt within the February 2021 video name to attempt to safe a $45 million funding. After the decision, the potential investor contacted the particular person whom Mr. Rao had impersonated and unraveled the ruse, prosecutors say. Mr. Watson claimed on the time that Mr. Rao had suffered a psychological breakdown and had acted alone.
Mr. Rao and Suzee Han, a former Ozy chief of workers, pleaded responsible final 12 months to fraud costs.
Foster Kamer, a digital-media veteran who has been concerned in a number of start-ups, stated the actions that Mr. Watson was accused of committing had been far totally different from the overly optimistic projections that many executives and traders made within the digital media go-go years of the 2010s.
The opposite media leaders and traders had “a monetary euphoria on par with Beanie Infants, tulips and meme shares,” stated Mr. Kamer, who’s the editor in chief of Futurism, a information web site. “However you may’t impersonate executives on convention calls. It’s fairly reduce and dry.”
Shannon Frison, protection counsel for Ozy, drew a distinction between it and rivals like BuzzFeed and Vice, saying Ozy was far more numerous and generated a lot of its income from its TV present and occasions and digital publication companies.
“They actually did have a unique enterprise mannequin altogether,” Ms. Frison stated.
In December, Mr. Watson sued Mr. Smith and Mr. Smith’s present firm, Semafor, in addition to BuzzFeed, his employer earlier than The Occasions. In his lawsuit, Mr. Watson says Mr. Smith was made aware of details about Ozy in his function as the highest editor of BuzzFeed Information after the 2 firms mentioned a deal in 2019. Mr. Watson stated Mr. Smith had used that data to begin Semafor, a media start-up.
Attorneys for Mr. Smith and Semafor have stated the claims haven’t any benefit. Spokeswomen for each BuzzFeed and Semafor declined to remark.
