Politics
LA actor Zach Avery ‘ran $227MILLION Ponzi scheme by claiming he had megabucks film deals with Netflix and HBO’
AN ASPIRING Los Angeles actor reportedly got away with a $227 million ponzi scheme, duping investors by telling them of his successful film distribution company.
The FBI nabbed Zachary Horwitz, 34, an actor with a handful of roles under the name Zach Avery, for cheating investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and using most of the funds for himself.
Horwitz would allegedly tell investors his company, 1inMM Capital LLC, had a licensing deal with Netflix, HBO and other companies.
On top of those claims, he told them his company distributed 52 films in South Africa, South America and Australia.
FBI agent John Verrastro gave a sworn statement in Los Angeles federal court on Tuesday depicting Horwitz’s brazen acts, reported the Los Angeles Times.
He would gift his bankrollers with expensive bottles of Johnny Walker Blue Label scotch attached with his company’s 2015 annual report highlighting the films distributed by his company.
He told investors his company was distributing over 50 films around the world[/caption]
Among those films include 2012’s The Lords of Salem and 1989’s Kickboxer, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Investors were promised returns as high as 40 percent a year.
Instead, he used their funds for personal use, spending some of the dough in 2018 on a fancy $6.5 million six-bedroom Beverlywood mansion with a pool, wine cellar and gym.
However, Horwitz’s luck ran out when he began defaulting on 160 payments to them since 2019, ultimately owing them close to $230 million.
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During his arraignment on Tuesday, Magistrate Jean P. Rosenbluth expressed concern that he was a flight target.
“There is a lot of money, quote unquote, missing here,” Rosenbluth said, before agreeing to set his bond for release.
The actor was charged with wire fraud and released on $1 million bond.
