Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
Former TV host Carlos Watson
gets nearly ten
years in prison
NEW YORK | Former talk show host Carlos Watson was sentenced Monday to nearly 10 years in prison in a federal financial conspiracy case that cast his once-buzzy Ozy Media as an extreme of fake-it-’til-you-make-it startup culture.
So extreme that another Ozy executive impersonated a YouTube executive to hype Ozy to investment bankers — while Watson coached him, prosecutors said.
Watson, 55, and the now-defunct company were found guilty last summer of charges including wire fraud conspiracy. He has denied the allegations.
Watson, who has been free on $3 million bond, faced a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison and potentially as much as 37 years.
Prosecutors accused the former cable news commentator and host of playing a leading role in a scheme to deceive Ozy investors and lenders by inflating revenue numbers, touting deals and offers that were nonexistent or not finalized, and flashing other false indications of Ozy’s success.
Watson even listened in and texted talking points while his co-founder posed as a YouTube executive to praise Ozy on a phone call with potential investors, prosecutors said.
“The quantum of dishonesty in this case is exceptional,” U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee said, later telling Watson: “Your internal apparatus for separating truth from fiction became badly miscalibrated.”
Watson blamed any misrepresentations on others, and he said he was a target of “selective prosecution” as a Black entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, where African American executives have been disproportionately few.
“I loved what we built with Ozy,” he said in court Monday, initially addressing supporters in the audience before the judge suggested he turn around. He portrayed himself as a founder who put everything he had into his company, saying that he took an average salary around $51,000 from Ozy in its final years, has triple-mortgaged his home and drives a 15-year-old car.
The co-founder, Samir Rao, and former Ozy chief of staff Suzee Han pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Both testified against Watson.
Ozy, founded in 2012, was styled as a hub of news and culture for millennials with a global outlook.
Watson boasted an impressive resume: degrees from Harvard University and Stanford Law School, a stint on Wall Street, on-air gigs at CNN and MSNBC, and entrepreneurial chops. Ozy Media was his second startup, coming a decade after he sold a test-prep company that he had founded while in his 20s.
Mountain View, California-based Ozy produced TV shows, newsletters, podcasts, and a music-and-ideas festival. Watson hosted several of the TV programs, including the Emmy-winning “Black Women OWN the Conversation,” which appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Ozy snagged big advertisers, clients and grants. But beneath the outward signs of success was an overextended company that struggled — and dissembled — to stay afloat after 2017, according to insiders’ testimony.
The company strained to make payroll, ran late on rent and took out pricey cash advances to pay bills, former finance vice president Janeen Poutre told jurors. Meanwhile, Ozy gave prospective investors much bigger revenue numbers than those it reported to accountants, according to testimony and documents.
On the witness stand in July, Watson said the company’s cash squeezes were just a startup norm and its investors knew they were getting unaudited numbers that could change.
Ozy disintegrated in 2021, after a New York Times column disclosed the phone-call impersonation gambit and raised questions about the true size of the startup’s audience.
Mysterious googly eyes go viral after appearing on art
PORTLAND, Ore. | Googly eyes have been appearing on sculptures around the central Oregon city of Bend, delighting many residents and sparking a viral sensation covered widely by news outlets and featured on a popular late-night talk show.
On social media, the city shared photos of googly eyes on installations in the middle of roundabouts that make up its so-called “Roundabout Art Route.” One photo shows googly eyes placed on a sculpture of two deer, while another shows them attached to a sphere. It’s not yet known who has been putting them on the sculptures.
“While the googly eyes placed on the various art pieces around town might give you a chuckle, it costs money to remove them with care to not damage the art,” the city said in its posts.
The Facebook post received hundreds of comments, with many users saying they liked the googly eyes. “My daughter and I went past the flaming chicken today and shared the biggest laugh,” one user said, using a nickname for the “Phoenix Rising” sculpture. “We love the googly eyes. This town is getting to be so stuffy. Let’s have fun!”
Another Facebook user wrote: “I think the googly eyes on the deer specifically are a great look, and they should stay that way.”
Others said the city should focus on addressing more important issues, such as homelessness, instead of spending time and money on removing the googly eyes.
Over the years, the city’s sculptures have been adorned with other seasonal decorations, including Santa hats, wreaths, leis. The city doesn’t remove those, and views the googly eyes differently because of the adhesive, Bend’s communications director, Rene Mitchell, told The Associated Press.
“We really encourage our community to engage with the art and have fun. We just need to make sure that we can protect it and that it doesn’t get damaged,” she said.
The post and its comments were covered by news outlets, and even made it on a segment of CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” The city regrets that its post was misunderstood, Mitchell said.
“There was no intent to be heavy-handed, and we certainly understand maybe how that was taken,” she said. “We own this large collection of public art and really want to bring awareness to the community that applying adhesives does harm the art. So as stewards of the collection, we wanted to share that on social media.”
The city has so far spent $1,500 on removing googly eyes from seven of the eight sculptures impacted, Mitchell said, and has started treating some of the art pieces, which are made of different types of metal such as bronze and steel. The “Phoenix Rising” sculpture might need to be repainted entirely, she said.
For some, the googly eyes — like the other holiday objects — provide a welcome boost of seasonal cheer.
“I look forward to seeing the creativity of whoever it is that decorates the roundabouts during the holidays,” one social media commenter said. “Brings a smile to everyone to see silliness.”
Kristen Bell set
to return as host
of Screen Actors Guild Awards
LOS ANGELES | Kristen Bell will return as host of next year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, streaming live on Netflix for a second consecutive year.
“I’m honored to be asked back and can’t wait to share the evening with my fellow actors, doing what we do best… celebrating ourselves,” Bell said in a statement Monday. The actor, who starred in “ Nobody Wants This “ and “The Good Place,” was the SAG Awards’ first host in 2018.
The 31st annual awards ceremony, which honors outstanding performances in film and television, will stream live on Netflix on Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. Eastern from the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles. Idris Elba hosted last year’s ceremony.
“Kristen Bell’s wit, warmth and charm makes her the perfect fit for our show — a night celebrating actors and the outstanding performances of the year,” said Jon Brockett, executive producer of the SAG Awards. “Plus, everybody wants this.”
Bell is an executive producer and stars in the Netflix comedy series “Nobody Wants This” with Adam Brody. She’s had roles in “The People We Hate at the Wedding,” “The Woman in the House” and “The Good Place” with Ted Danson. Her film credits include “ Queenpins,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” and the voice of Anna in Disney’s “Frozen.”
Jane Fonda will be honored with the SAG life achievement award during the awards ceremony.
Nominees will be announced Jan. 8.
—From AP reports
