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An actor behind a Ponzi scheme that cost investors more than $ 230 million with false promises of film rights pleaded guilty on Monday and faces up to 20 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Zachary Joseph Horwitz, 34, of Los Angeles, used money from the multi-year program to buy a $ 6 million home and pay off hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt.
He pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of securities fraud, the Central District of California attorney’s office said in a statement.
Horwitz told investors their money would be used to secure the rights to films Netflix and HBO have agreed to distribute overseas, officials said.
But the money wasn’t going for that, and the licensing deals and the deals with Netflix and HBO were bogus, Horwitz admitted in a plea deal. The streaming giants said they had never done business with him or his company, prosecutors said. The overall program has raised at least $ 650 million and caused more than $ 230 million in losses.
“Mr. Horwitz has accepted responsibility for his actions, and today’s plea is an important step in that process,” said his attorney, Ryan S. Hedges.
The Ponzi scheme eventually collapsed and 1inMM Capital began to default on promissory notes in 2019. Horwitz used the incoming money to reimburse previous investors and support the scheme, according to court documents.
Horwitz used some of the stolen money to buy a $ 6 million house in Beverlywood, a Los Angeles neighborhood south of Beverly Hills, and paid off more than $ 300,000 in credit card debt, said prosecutors. He is expected to be sentenced on January 2.
According to his IMDb profile, Horwitz has 15 acting credits under his belt. Four of them are for short films; about half of them consider him to be an anonymous extra.
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