President Trump on Friday travelled the sentence of Carlos Watson, a co-founder of the now-defunct digital media company Ozy Media, on the day he was set to surrender to jail, 3 individuals familiar with the matter said.Mr.
Watson was sentenced in December to almost 10 years in jail for trying to defraud investors and lending institutions by lying about the business's financial resources. He was sentenced after a federal jury last summer founded guilty Mr. Watson and Ozy Media of conspiracy to devote securities and wire scams. The jury also convicted Mr. Watson of identity theft, after a two-month trial during which witnesses detailed an impersonated telephone call, produced agreements and misleading claims about Ozy's earnings from 2018 to 2021.
A federal judge had likewise ordered Mr. Watson and Ozy to pay $96 million in restitution and forfeiture. Mr. Watson and Ozy likewise no longer have to pay those punitive damages, individuals said.Mr.
Watson had actually pleaded not guilty and continued to assert his innocence up till he was sentenced to 116 months. His commutation was reported previously by CNBC.Mr.
Watson said in a statement that he was “profoundly grateful to President Trump for remedying this serious oppression.”
Mr. Watson began Ozy in 2013, releasing news articles and newsletters before venturing into podcasts and tv productions. The start-up secured commitments from popular investors at a time when digital publishers, like BuzzFeed and Vice, attracted billions of dollars in financial investments that mainly didn't pan out.Throughout the legal
proceedings, Mr. Watson denied the fraud accusations. In court, his legal representatives argued that his representations to investors had been based upon good-faith assessments of Ozy's financial resources, and they shifted the blame for any fraudulent activity onto other previous Ozy staff members. When he took the stand at his trial, Mr. Watson said he had not purposefully inflated revenue quotes, however rather had presented the kinds of service-based income typical of a” scrappy young company “in its early years.Mr. Watson, at his sentencing hearing in December, restated his position that the federal government selectively prosecuted him due to the fact that he is a Black man.Samir Rao, the other founder of Ozy, and Suzee Han, a previous Ozy chief of personnel, pleaded guilty in 2023 to scams charges
and testified versus Mr. Watson.At the heart of the case was a 2021 fund-raising call throughout which Mr. Rao deceived Goldman Sachs employees by impersonating a YouTube executive, as first reported by The New york city Times. District attorneys competed that Mr. Watson had assisted establish the call, citing text he sent out to Mr. Rao that, they claimed, amounted to a script for what to state. Mr. Watson rejected any responsibility.Witnesses also affirmed that Mr. Watson had actually misrepresented Ozy's financial resources to secure investments, inflating earnings figures and providing misleading claims of commitments from Oprah Winfrey and Live Country Entertainment.Mr.
Trump also today pardoned the 3 founders of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, who had pleaded guilty in 2022 to infractions of the bank secrecy act, among the people acquainted with the matter stated, in addition to Trevor Milton, who was founded guilty by a federal jury in 2022 of defrauding investors in the electrical truck maker Nikola. Source
