Hollywood aspiring actor Zach Avery got arrested due to an accusation of involvement in a scam scheme worth USD 690. He allegedly took money fraudulently from a producer by faking multiple deals with Netflix. He used that money for his personal use of a luxurious lifestyle.
The FBI arrested the 34 years old actor over accusations of scamming a Ponzi scheme worth USD 690 or GBP 502 million.
Zach Avery assured investors of getting banking from Netflix as well as HBO
Zach uses Mr. Horwitz as his stage name. He accumulated funds from several producers/ investors for a movie. Zach assured them that the film would be assets of HBO and Netflix, but this licensing never existed.
The FBI charged him with charges of wire fraud. Therefore, if the court convicts him, he would have served 20 years of jail time.
SEC (exchange and securities commission) and Prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against him.
Mr. Horwitz uplifted his lifestyle with scam money
Zach spent the money to uplift his lifestyle by going to Vegas, flying on private jets, buying luxurious cars, and even buying a mansion in LA worth 5.7 million USD.
SEC senior officials said on Tuesday that Horwitz assured investors of the high value of returns. He used two renowned company names to make it a plausible deal for them. Zach presented fabricated documents to the investors.
Although it is not a significant name in Hollywood, Zach Avery played a blink and miss role in Brad Pitt, starred Fury in 2014. Zach mostly essayed small parts in lower-budget mediocre movies.
Investors believed their investments were in safe hands
Investors did not pay much attention to the deal with Lucia’s Grace, an Italian comedy that had released in 2018.
Jay Weissberg, a critic from Variety, called the feature an endurable comic bubble. However, it lacked cohesion, trying too much to reach an unnecessary populist approach.
Rotten Tomatoes gave it 43% as their review.
Investors said that they put faith in such projects of Horwitz due to the association with such renowned streaming platforms.
Zach Avery’s enterprise 1inMM Capital LLC has been giving the investors assurance that it will use its money to purchase the rights for distributing movies in New Zealand, Latin America, and Africa.
Investors then got stuck with the deals when there was no confirmation from HBO and Netflix.
Zach Avery promised his investors of huge return by fabricating docs
Horwitz pledged to investors a 35% return in a year. However, both streaming platforms did not have any agreement with 1inMM.
There were fabricated emails, agreements, documents from Netflix, and HBO, making the investors believe in those projects of Zach Avery.
Prosecutors said that both streaming companies had no relationship with 1inMM. Zach falsified the documents, emails, agreements with investors.
One investor stated that he had this belief that HBO’s involvement could gain him a good return. An investor said to a prosecutor that he had put his money believing that HBO was backing the movies.
Zach Avery availed himself Luxurious cars, flight travel, interior decoration with Ponzi scam scheme money.
Mr. Horwitz had paid a certain amount of money to few investors by accumulating money from several other investors. Then after a point of time, his Ponzi scheme stopped working during 2019. 1inMM started to default while making the payments.
The complaint against Mr. Horwitz described that he had transferred investors’ money to his account to use it for personal use.
The complaint consists of a cost of USD 691,800 for extravagant interior decoration by a famous interior decorator. A high-end vehicle was bought worth USD 165,408, a flying price of USD 137,072 in chartered flights, and a watch service worth 54,600 USD.
Judge announced on Tuesday that Mr. Horwitz could avail bail against a 1 million USD bond.