An American actor who swindled hundreds of victims out of $650 million in a Hollywood Ponzi scheme to finance a lavish lifestyle was jailed on Monday for 20 years.
Zachary Horwitz persuaded five investor groups and more than 250 people to lend him money by saying he could purchase movie rights from producers and sell them to HBO, Netflix and other channels and platforms as the industry moved to capitalise on consumers' shift to streaming services, prosecutors said during his trial.
The Fury actor promised to investors returns of up to 45 per cent and even produced fraudulent documents showing that he had secured production rights, NBC News reported.
Instead, Horwitz, who also acted in small-time horror films under the name Zach Avery, used the money to fund a lifestyle full of yachts, jets and fast cars.
“Horwitz portrayed himself as a Hollywood success story,” prosecutors said.
“He branded himself as an industry player, who … leveraged his relationships with online streaming platforms like HBO and Netflix to sell them foreign film distribution rights at a steady premium.
“But, as his victims came to learn, [Horwitz] was not a successful businessman or Hollywood insider. He just played one.”
Over the course of seven years, he kept the scheme going by using new investors' money to repay the old ones.
By the time it all fell apart, more than $230m had vanished.
He admitted to engaging in security fraud in October and acknowledged that he had never bought any film rights or secured any distribution contracts.
His plea agreement stated that Horwitz had “caused financial hardship to at least five investors".
It would be “difficult to conceive a white-collar crime more egregious”, prosecutors said in a memo to the judge, noting Horwitz had started his life of crime by swindling university friends.
“He began by betraying the trust of his own friends, people who lowered their guard because they could not possibly imagine that someone they had known for years would unflinchingly swindle them and their families out of their life savings,” they wrote.
In addition to his 20-year jail sentence, Horwitz was ordered by Judge Mark Scarsito to repay the $230m to his victims.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
