09/10/2021 7:28 PM
Clarín.com
Dresses
Updated 9/10/2021 7:28 PM
Private jet, a
$ 5.7 million mansion
in one of
Hollywood's
most exclusive neighborhoods
, with its own movie theater, gym, and even a wine cellar with over a thousand bottles.
Zachary Horwitz's
life of luxury
did not coincide with his very brief career as an actor, who had arrived in the mythical city of cinema in 2012 and
only held a handful of minor roles.
Everything was explained from
a mega scam under the Ponzi scheme that in a very short time made him a rich man.
Although his good life collapsed at dawn on April 6, when
FBI agents broke into his home to arrest him for having defrauded more than 250 investors,
including his own friends from college and their families.
That invented life ended overnight,
his wife left him and he could no longer return to the VIP seats at the Lakers stadium, where the NBA was still glued to the playing field.
There were also no more attempts to seduce waitresses with an exaggerated $ 5,000 tip.
Now is the time to
accept his mistakes and face the sentence
that the next court hearings will bring.
He admitted, in a court statement, to having misled various investors into giving him more than $ 650 million.
Photo: Video capture.
The low-budget sci-fi horror movie actor, who called himself Zach Avery, agreed to plead guilty to running a massive pyramid scheme.
He admitted, in a court statement, to having deceived different investors
into giving him more than
650 million dollars
with the promise of obtaining the
rights to films
that would later be shown on the HBO and Netflix platforms.
He assured that he would give a profit close to 45%
, he took advantage of the trust of those who considered him his friend, or a close family member and
he showed himself as a successful member of the community of actors with ties to the best producers.
He also presented signed contracts with the streaming giants, but it was all false.
While Horwitz returned much of the money to entice victims to invest more, he also
spent large sums to finance
his
"luxurious lifestyle."
According to his Sept. 1 plea agreement with the Los Angeles federal prosecutor's office,
Horwitz acknowledged that he has failed to pay $ 231 million.
Horwitz spent seven years pretending to be the head of a film company called 1inMM Capital, LLC.
Under the agreement he signed with law enforcement officials,
Horwitz will plead guilty to one count of securities fraud at the next hearing, on October 4.
Prosecutors indicated in the records that they will ask United States District Judge Mark C. Scarsi to pass a
hefty sentence
in light of the huge sum he swindled.
He faces up to 20 years in prison.
According to his testimony,
Horwitz spent seven years pretending to be the head of a film company called 1inMM Capital, LLC
.
He told his investors that he was buying foreign film distribution rights and then
sold the licenses to Netflix, HBO
or other platforms to stream online in Latin America, Australia, Europe and Africa.
It required payments ranging from
$ 35,000 to $ 1.5 million for each operation linked to a film, and Horwitz guaranteed refunds within a year with a return of 25% to 45%
.
All these expenses were financed with the following investors who put money for another movie, until the chain was cut and the truth was uncovered.
Horwitz acknowledged to prosecutors that the distribution and license contracts were forged.
MADRID, 7 (CultureOcio)
Horwitz acknowledged to prosecutors that the distribution and license contracts were forged.
The effort to defrauding investors into thinking they would eventually be
repaid
included false show claimed to
have exchanged correspondence with executives from Netflix and HBO.
The victims: friends and family, who lost everything
More than 250 investors were victims of Horwitz's plan
, as he himself confessed.
Among them were several of Horwitz's closest friends from college, along with their
parents, grandparents, siblings, and in-laws, some of whom lost their retirement savings.
Friends from the university have been trying to help federal investigators recover Horwitz assets
so victims "can rebuild their lives after the devastating damage he has done to so many people," Michael said.
I dreamed of being an NFL star
Horwitz
grew up in Florida and Indiana,
where he rose to prominence as a rising football star playing for Indiana University.
A severe injury destroyed his future and forced him to rearm.
After wandering through different projects, he lit the inner flame of acting, the one he had fed in his childhood with school theater classes.
Zach Avery, in Swagger magazine.
He moved to Los Angeles in 2012 and there
he befriended two brothers who helped him enter the movie business:
producer Julio Hallivis and his brother Diego, director and producer.
He changed his name to Zach Avery, and appeared in a number of his low-end films, including "Trespassers" and "The Devil Below."
"I always had that little dream of being,
" he told Swagger magazine in February 2019, when his scam had not yet spread and
he showed himself as a growing actor
, married to Mallory, his teenage girlfriend, and proud of his son Jax.
As millions piled up in his bank account,
in 2018 he finally managed to advance his acting career.
He appeared in three horror films "Hell is Where the Home Is", the British film "The White Crow" and "The Farming" starring Kate Beckinsale.
It was unable to meet investors' redemption demands, prompting a lawsuit that alerted Netflix.
Photo: Video capture.
Months later the problems to return the promised money led to his scam being exposed.
It was unable to comply with investors' demands for redemption
, prompting a lawsuit that alerted Netflix to its use of counterfeit contracts.
A federal grand jury indicted Horwitz in May on
five counts of securities fraud, six counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
If you go ahead with the plan to plead guilty to the one-time fraud charge, the other charges will be dropped, but
you won't be able to avoid a hefty conviction.
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