Ozy CEO’s Lawyer Grills Co-Founder Over Posing as YouTube Exec

A lawyer for Ozy Media Inc. CEO Carlos Watson grilled the company’s co-founder on Friday about his attempt to impersonate a YouTube executive and other misrepresentations.

The lawyer, Ronald Sullivan, opened the trial in the conspiracy case against Watson last week by telling jurors that Samir Rao was a “crooked co-founder” of the media company who got a “sweetheart deal” from prosecutors. Rao is a key prosecution witnesses, and Sullivan continued to paint him as a serial deceiver who implicated Watson to save himself.

“You’re a liar, right?” Sullivan said. “You’ve become quite a proficient liar?”

“I did it a lot,” responded Rao, who was also Ozy’s chief operating officer.

Watson, on trial in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, faces charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors say he conspired to defraud investors out of tens of millions of dollars.

No ‘We’

Rao is testifying as part of a plea deal with prosecutors. He told jurors earlier this week how he used a voice-altering app to pose as the YouTube executive in an attempt to secure millions of dollars in funding from Goldman Sachs. Rao testified Watson was in the room and told him what to say.

Ozy was sent into tailspin after The New York Times reported about Rao’s impersonation in 2021.

Sullivan hammered Rao about the draft of a confession letter that Rao wrote ahead of the Times’ article. Rao in the draft said that “absurdly, stupidly, without consulting anyone else, I set up a reference call and tried to pass myself off as the reference.”

“You didn’t say, I had some conversation with Carlos Watson where we agreed to set up the call,” Sullivan said.

Rao in the draft letter said he struggled with mental health issues in the weeks leading up to the call. He wrote the “board and co-founder were remarkably patient—given that I had just set fire to a $40m+ financing several months in the making.”

Rao said Friday the draft letter was false in various respects. In reality, he said, the call wasn’t the result of mental health issues and that “we were actually misleading” Goldman.

“I don’t see the word ‘we’ in” the letter, Sullivan said. “It says ‘I.’ And I is Samir Rao.”

‘Refer Me’

Sullivan, a professor at Harvard Law School, and the judge overseeing the case, Eric Komitee, showed some frustration with one another early in the afternoon.

During an interaction after jurors were excused for lunch, Sullivan complained about the judge cutting him short earlier while he walked Rao through a long list of Ozy’s paying clients over a span of several years.

Sullivan said the judge made the decision on his own, as opposed to responding to an objection from prosecutors. Komitee disagreed and said Sullivan “blatantly misrepresented” what took place at a sidebar conference between the judge and the lawyers.

“I really do think it ill-becomes a lawyer of your stature to mispresent the record,” the judge said.

“Refer me,” Sullivan responded. “I stand by my representations.”

Komitee also chided Sullivan for raising his voice during their back-and-forth, saying “I’ll ask you again to keep your voice down in this courtroom.” Komitee revisited the issue after the lunch break.

“We are going to maintain a level of civility and decorum that befits the setting,” he said.

“I’m not sure who the shouting was intended for,” Komitee said, noting the jury room was behind a set of nearby doors, “but it should not continue.”

The case is USA v. Watson, E.D.N.Y., No. 23-cr-00082, trial held 6/7/24.