LOS ANGELES (WANE) — A Los Angeles man originally from Fort Wayne has been sentenced for operating what prosecutors called the biggest Ponzi scheme in Hollywood history.
Zachary Joseph Horwitz, 35, a 2005 Carroll High School graduate, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison and was ordered to pay $230,361,884 in restitution. He pleaded guilty in October 2021 to one count of securities fraud.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California, between 2014 and 2021, Horwitz raised at least $650 million with bogus claims that investor money would be used to acquire licensing rights to films that HBO and Netflix purportedly had agreed to distribute abroad. Many investors were personal friends, the DOJ said.
Horwitz’s company never acquired film rights or entered into any distribution agreements with HBO or Netflix. Film licensing agreements and distribution agreements were fake, the DOJ said.
Investors started to complain after Horwitz’s company began defaulting on notes in 2019.
“Defendant Zachary Horwitz portrayed himself as a Hollywood success story,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “He branded himself as an industry player, who, through his company…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 in real life.”
