Ozy Media founder and CEO Carlos Watson has been arrested on fraud costs, Latest Hollywood News has confirmed.
Watson’s arrest comes after his former Ozy Media associate, Samir Rao, pleaded responsible to fraud costs and agreed to cooperate with federal officers.
Watson’s arrest comes greater than a 12 months after Ozy Media’s downfall, and simply as Watson was planning to tro and resurrect the model. Earlier this month Watson appeared at an promoting occasion sponsored by international advertising big IPG, looking for sponsors for an upcoming version of OzyFest.
Ozy’s downfall started in fall 2021, when then-New York Occasions media columnist Ben Smith revealed that Rao impersonated an govt from YouTube in a fundraising assembly with Goldman Sachs. Subsequent tales steered Watson additionally lied to the chief producer of his YouTube present by saying it could air on cable channels owned by A+E Networks, and that Watson had made false claims about Ozy’s attain and site visitors.
Ozy’s TV and podcast offers fell aside after the tales, and the corporate shut down in October 2021 (although Watson would go on to tease its potential resurrection).
