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  • Trump Commutes Ozy Media Founder’s Sentence Just Before His Surrender

    Trump Commutes Ozy Media Founder’s Sentence Just Before His Surrender


    President Trump on Friday commuted the sentence of Carlos Watson, a co-founder of the now-defunct digital media company Ozy Media, on the day he was set to surrender to prison, three people familiar with the matter said.

    Mr. Watson was sentenced in December to almost 10 years in prison for trying to defraud investors and lenders by lying about the company’s finances. He was sentenced after a federal jury last summer convicted Mr. Watson and Ozy Media of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The jury also convicted Mr. Watson of identity theft, after a two-month trial during which witnesses detailed an impersonated phone call, fabricated contracts and misleading claims about Ozy’s earnings from 2018 to 2021.

    A federal judge had also ordered Mr. Watson and Ozy to pay $96 million in restitution and forfeiture. Mr. Watson and Ozy also no longer have to pay those financial penalties, the people said.

    Mr. Watson had pleaded not guilty and continued to assert his innocence up until he was sentenced to 116 months. His commutation was reported earlier by CNBC.

    Mr. Watson said in a statement that he was “profoundly grateful to President Trump for correcting this grave injustice.”

    Mr. Watson started Ozy in 2013, publishing news articles and newsletters before venturing into podcasts and television productions. The start-up secured commitments from prominent investors at a time when digital publishers, like BuzzFeed and Vice, attracted billions of dollars in investments that largely didn’t pan out.

    Throughout the legal proceedings, Mr. Watson denied the fraud allegations. In court, his lawyers argued that his representations to investors had been based on good-faith assessments of Ozy’s finances, and they shifted the blame for any fraudulent activity onto other former Ozy employees. When he took the stand at his trial, Mr. Watson said he had not intentionally inflated revenue estimates, but rather had presented the types of service-based income typical of a “scrappy young company” in its early years.

    Mr. Watson, at his sentencing hearing in December, reiterated his stance that the government selectively prosecuted him because he is a Black man.

    Samir Rao, the other founder of Ozy, and Suzee Han, a former Ozy chief of staff, pleaded guilty in 2023 to fraud charges and testified against Mr. Watson.

    At the heart of the case was a 2021 fund-raising call during which Mr. Rao misled Goldman Sachs employees by impersonating a YouTube executive, as first reported by The New York Times. Prosecutors contended that Mr. Watson had helped set up the call, citing text messages he sent to Mr. Rao that, they claimed, amounted to a script for what to say. Mr. Watson denied any responsibility.

    Witnesses also testified that Mr. Watson had misrepresented Ozy’s finances to secure investments, inflating revenue figures and presenting misleading claims of commitments from Oprah Winfrey and Live Nation Entertainment.

    Mr. Trump also this week pardoned the three founders of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, who had pleaded guilty in 2022 to violations of the bank secrecy act, one of the people familiar with the matter said, as well as Trevor Milton, who was convicted by a federal jury in 2022 of defrauding investors in the electric truck maker Nikola.



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  • Hurricane Hilary grows rapidly off Mexico. Rare tropical storm watch issued for California. – Times of India

    Hurricane Hilary grows rapidly off Mexico. Rare tropical storm watch issued for California. – Times of India



    MEXICO CITY: Hurricane Hilary grew rapidly into Category 4 strength off Mexico’s Pacific coast on Friday and could reach Southern California as the first tropical storm there in 84 years, which forecasters warned could cause extreme flooding, mudslides and even tornados.
    Hilary had sustained winds near 145 mph (230 kph) early Friday, and was expected to strengthen a bit more before starting to weaken. Nevertheless, it was forecast to still be a hurricane when approaching Mexico’s Baja California peninsula on Saturday night, and a tropical storm when approaching Southern California on Sunday.
    The National Hurricane Center on Friday issued its first ever tropical storm watch for much of Southern California, covering a wide swath of the region from the coast to the interior mountains and deserts.
    No tropical storm has made landfall in Southern California since Sept. 25, 1939, according to the National Weather Service. The watch warned of numerous potential threats to life and property including extreme flooding, mudslides and tornados.
    The Mexican government said a weakened Hilary might skim a sparsely populated area on the western edge of the Baja peninsula early Sunday, and then perhaps hit between the cities of Playas de Rosarito and Ensenada.
    The Mexican government extended its hurricane watches and warnings northward for parts of Baja California peninsula, and also issued a tropical storm watch for parts of mainland Mexico. Some 18,000 soldiers were put on alert.
    Early Friday, Hilary was centered about 360 miles (575 kilometers) south-southwest of Los Cabos on the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. It was moving northwest at 10 mph (17 kph), and was expected to turn further toward the north.
    It was increasingly likely that Hilary would reach southernmost California early Monday while still at tropical storm strength, though widespread rain was expected to begin as early as Saturday, the National Weather Service’s San Diego office said.
    Hurricane officials said the storm could bring heavy rainfall to the Southwestern United States that could dump 3 to 6 inches in parts with isolated amounts of up to 10 inches to portions of southern California and southern Nevada, hitting large desert areas unaccustomed to much rain.
    “The rain is the biggest potential threat,” said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.
    The region could face once-in-a-century rains and there’s a good chance Nevada will break its all-time rainfall record, said meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections and a former government in-flight hurricane meteorologist.
    Cities across the region, and on both sides of the border, were setting up stations for residents to get sandbags to safeguard properties against floodwaters, while the National Park Service planned to close vulnerable areas of Joshua Tree National Park, east of Los Angeles, on Friday evening, and suspend all back country camping.
    SpaceX delayed the launch of a satellite-carrying rocket from a base on California’s central coast until at least Monday. The company said conditions in the Pacific could make it difficult for a ship to recover the rocket booster.
    Storms don’t usually hit Southern California because prevailing winds usually push them northeastward into Mexico and other parts of the U.S. Southwest, Masters said.
    Hilary is forecast to delay or not make that eastward turn, mostly because of a high pressure heat dome that is expected to bring triple digit heat indices in the Midwest. That heat dome blocks the eastern turn so tropical moisture will likely move into the Pacific Northwest and even Alberta, Canada, Masters said.
    Hilary’s strength and its width are impressive, he added. The storm gained 75 miles per hour in wind speed in just 24 hours, which is twice the official threshold for rapid intensification. That’s because the storm went over warm 86 degree (30 degree Celsius) water which acts as fuel on its heat engine.
    But that strength is likely to just as dramatically disappear as it hits cooler 68 degree water near San Diego and strong crosswinds.





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