Carlos Watson, a co-founder of the digital media start-up Ozy Media, testified on Monday at his fraud trial that he had not conspired to trick traders.
Instead, he mentioned, his younger media firm employed methods to construct partnerships, safe promoting income and attract traders.
“We actually thought we had an opportunity to do one thing particular that might be round a very long time,” Mr. Watson advised the jury.
Mr. Watson’s testimony is the middle of his protection in opposition to prices that he misrepresented his firm’s monetary outcomes, fund-raising and viewers knowledge to traders and lenders from 2018 to 2021. The prosecution has referred to as a wide range of witnesses, together with potential traders who testified that Mr. Watson had misled them concerning the firm in an try and safe funding.
Mr. Watson, who has pleaded not responsible to all the fees in opposition to him, might withstand 37 years in jail if convicted.
Speaking earlier than a jury in federal court docket in Brooklyn, he denied purposely deceptive anybody.
Mr. Watson, who can be a former MSNBC anchor, pressured his private dedication to the media start-up, which he mentioned had included monetary investments and wage cuts to exhibit he was “all in.”
“It is a problem once you’re attempting to construct one thing completely different to draw assist,” Mr. Watson mentioned, including that the problem was even larger for a Black entrepreneur like him.
Mr. Watson launched Ozy with Samir Rao in 2013. The start-up revealed information articles and newsletters earlier than venturing into podcast and tv productions. It secured commitments from distinguished traders at a time when digital publishers, like BuzzFeed and Vice, attracted billions of {dollars} in investments that largely didn’t pan out.
At the guts of the federal legal trial is an incident in 2021 when Mr. Rao, who was Mr. Watson’s deputy, misled Goldman Sachs workers throughout a fund-raising name by impersonating a YouTube govt. The disclosure of the decision, first reported by The New York Times, precipitated the collapse of Ozy.
Lawyers for Mr. Watson and Ozy have blamed Mr. Rao for the impersonation and for misrepresenting Ozy’s financials to potential traders. Shannon Frison, a lawyer for Ozy, mentioned in her opening assertion in May that Mr. Rao was “incompetent for the position that he was serving.”
Mr. Watson portrayed himself on Monday as an attentive chief, however somebody faraway from lots of his firm’s day-to-day operations. He “couldn’t get into the weeds” when coping with broader strategic planning, whereas Mr. Rao and different workers typically dealt with the start-up’s funds and expertise, Mr. Watson testified.
Mr. Rao and Suzee Han, a former Ozy chief of workers, pleaded responsible final 12 months to fraud prices.
Several of the prosecution’s witnesses additionally testified that Mr. Watson had misrepresented his firm’s financials to safe investments.
The highest-profile witness, Sundar Pichai, the chief govt of Google, testified that he had by no means mentioned a doable $600 million takeover of Ozy. Prosecutors mentioned Mr. Watson had advised a potential investor that Mr. Pichai made that supply.
Mr. Watson is anticipated to proceed his testimony on Tuesday, together with a cross-examination from the prosecution.
