Frank Parlato
Ozy Media and Its Fall
The following is the third Frank Report post on the rise and fall of Ozy Media. Founded in 2012, Ozy Media Inc. produced TV shows, newsletters, and podcasts. It closed in 2023 after the US Attorney for the Eastern District of NY indicted its founder, Carlos Watson. Ozy Media operated out of California.
Watson was the face of Ozy Media – its star. He was also the Chief Executive Officer.
The US Attorney in EDNY also charged Samir Rao, Ozy’s Chief Operating Officer, the number 2 guy, and Rao’s lieutenant, girl Friday, friend, and co-conspirator, Suzee Han. Her title was Chief of Staff.
Han and Rao negotiated plea bargains with “cooperation agreements” designed for the judge to go easy on them if they testified hard on Watson.
Rao and Han went from criminals to partners with the US Attorney’s office to convict Watson.
Watson’s Fall and The Charges
The trial of USA v Carlos Watson began on May 29, 2024. Watson faced charges of securities fraud conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, and aggravated identity theft.
The trial was actually Rao and Han v Watson.
Rao and Han confessed to lying to lenders and investors, creating fake contracts, criminal impersonations and securities fraud. The prosecution alleges Watson directed Han and Rao to commit crimes.
Watson said Rao and Han acted alone and lied on the stand to get their get-out-of-jail card from the government. The trial ended on July 17, 2024, when a jury found Watson guilty of all three counts.
Sentencing
Watson is due for sentencing on Nov. 18. He faces sentencing guidelines of 24-29 years – with a maximum of 37 years. Han and Rao do not have a sentencing date, typical for cooperators. They get sentenced last and least. Their approximate sentencing guidelines are in the mid-teens, but cooperators typically get 80-90 percent of their sentences shaved off. Han and Rao may get probation.
If so, the American criminal justice system works like this: three people are convicted of the same crimes: two walk, and one goes to prison for decades.
Race Dynamics in the Courtroom
Watson is Black. Watson’s attorneys, Ronald Sullivan Jr, Shannon Frison, and Janine Gilbert, are Black.
The prosecutors, Jonathan Siegel, Gillian Kassner, and Dylan Stern, and their legal assistant, Jake Menz, are White and, if I err not, Jewish.
The judge is White and Jewish.
Does Race Matter?
In the American system of justice, race or ethnicity is not supposed to matter. But you would have noticed the great color divide if you had walked into the courtroom during the Watson trial. The courtroom is divided into halves – the defense and the prosecution side.
As you enter, on your right was the defense with Watson, with his three Black attorneys, two Black female interns, and a Latina female intern.
On the left was the prosecution: Three White men and one White woman.
A Judge Above Bias
On a bench, in the back, above the rest, was the judge, White, Jewish, a former prosecutor from the same office as the prosecutors (he left the office before any of the young prosecutors went to work at the USAO EDNY).
Federal judges are appointed for life. They are supposed to be above the fray of political or financial influences, above race, religion, friendship, or anything but the law and fairness.
Komitee was undoubtedly well-qualified to understand the case.
As an Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, Eric Komitee handled cases like Watson’s — an alleged white-collar conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud case. He rose to Chief of the Business and Securities Fraud Section, supervising the Assistant US Attorneys prosecuting white-collar and corporate crime.
Komitee’s Background
After leaving the job as the top EDNY securities prosecutor in 2008, Komitee became the general counsel of Viking Global Investors LP, an investment advisor that manages more than $48 billion in assets for investors.
Komitee oversaw Viking’s legal and regulatory affairs and supervised a nine-person Legal and Compliance Department handling transactional work, contract negotiation, trading and regulatory compliance management, employee-relations issues, and litigation. He spent a decade at Viking, ensuring the company never landed in the same place as Ozy Media and Carlos Watson. After ten years, he left Viking to become a federal judge in 2018.
Komitee’s Background in Finance
It should not make a difference that a White Jewish judge oversees a case handled by three young White Jewish prosecutors from the same office he once worked at, doing the same thing he once did – securities fraud and wire fraud prosecution. However, one thing is certain: he knew their job better than they did.
Sure, he might have put himself in their position now and then and imagined how he might have handled, as a young prosecutor, the challenges of the Watson trial. But none of these commonalities with the prosecution should influence his conduct as a judge.
As Judge Komitee wrote at the time of his confirmation, “The job of a federal judge is to administer justice fairly for all people. To this end, the judge must work affirmatively to stem the effects of any biases on the part of jurors, advocates, or even the court itself.”
Connections to Goldman Sachs
The case against Watson erupted because of a fraud the cooperator Rao tried to perpetrate against Goldman Sachs, the global bankers.
Judge Komitee must know Goldman Sachs well. Viking Global and Goldman Sachs work together in joint investment efforts measured in hundreds of millions of dollars. Komitee, as general counsel for Viking, dealt with Goldman. The nature of the NYC financial world is that people move around. Some Viking management were formerly of Goldman Sachs, and everyone knows everyone in the top tier of the NYC financial world where Komitee dwelt.
For example, Komitee mentioned a few important friends when he became judge. Topmost was Pat Carroll, the FBI Special Agent in charge of Squad C1, one of the two securities fraud squads in New York, when Komitee was the chief of the securities fraud section for the US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn.
“Pat and I forged a friendship that has survived and only grown stronger over the years,” Komitee said at his Senate hearing.
Carrol left the FBI and went to Goldman Sachs in 2015, becoming Goldman’s “Global Head of the Monitoring and Assurance Group and Law Enforcement/Regulatory Liaison for Financial Crime Compliance.”
Goldman Sachs figured prominently in the Watson case, being mentioned hundreds of times in the transcripts – as, in effect, a victim. Komitee’s association with Goldman leans towards commonality, not necessarily bias. He understand the company as well as anyone and knows lots of their top people.
Financial Disclosures
Komitee has another commonality with the NYC financial elite. He is one of them.
In 2018, when he was considered for confirmation by the Senate, he had to disclose his net worth publicly. Law.com reported Komitee had “identified his net worth at nearly $60 million.”
More recent disclosures suggest his net worth may be more than $90 million.
A US district judge’s annual salary is $236,600. Judge Komitee’s earnings from dividends and income redemptions are more than ten times that. He disclosed earnings between $3,255,013 and $14,178,000 in dividend income plus redemptions in 2021.
His reported net worth in 2018 equals the combined net worth of the nine Supreme Court Justices.
Komitee and the Financial World
He knows money and knows the people who make money with their money and with the money that money makes they make more money.
He is one of those who makes money with his money. They are a class unto themselves. It is his world.
Color is Not an Issue
As for color, beyond the color green, it should make no difference.
Other than the shock-sight when one first walked into the court – a Black side and White side and a White judge at the head – a judge with far more commonalities with the prosecutors and the victims or potential victims, like Goldman Sachs and Google and YouTube executives who testified for the prosecution than Watson – a non-insider from California.
But a federal judge is above that.
The Jury’s Role
And, of course, innocence or guilt is determined by the jury. I neglected to mention the jury.
Off to the left – closest to the prosecution – was the jury: seven White men, two Asian – one male, one female – born in China (the Chinese man was the foreman), one Latina woman, who lamentably could not speak much English – a tough road to hoe for a securities fraud trial, and two Black women. There were no Black men on the jury.
But I do not want to dwell on race or commonalities. While Watson and attorneys have accused the judge of bias, I do not. I want to examine the evidence. The evidence speaks for itself. The trial speaks for itself.
To be continued…
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
Puhlease. As a former OZY employee let me be very clear that the buck always stopped with Carlos.
This is only the fraud they chose to prosecute.
Samir and Suzee were minions.
May have been predetermined.
May not have been predetermined.
[snore]
Cmon, Frank. Can’t you find another sex cult to hire you for PR consulting? This crap is boring and pointless.
How about some updates on the choking guru?!
Why was this case prosecuted in NY if it’s a CA company? Were the alleged victims in NY?
They couldn’t find one black man in Brooklyn to be on the jury?
I hope you have something more than the race card.
Conflicts of interest abound. This was conviction by design.
Thank you for illustrating the framework we have been brainwashed to believe is a system of Justice.
Even with good intentions, the deck is stacked.
Why would a Jewish Whote judge who is friends with the victims who used to work in the same office as the prosecutors recuse himself ?
A: He was there to get a conviction.
What does this judge being Jewish have anything to do with the appearance of impropriety in this case? As if WASPS, Catholics, or Muslims never are corrupt!
Can you do a piece on CT GAL misconduct?
FR could write a book about it. Gal’s are the choreographers and most powerful people in CT racketeering. They silence the targeted parent and the children while collecting the money and working in lockstep with attorneys, evaluators and the judges.
There is one particular GAL in Stamford that should be featured for doing these things. She is absolutely disgusting.
Name please. You’re anonymous.
I have a treasure trove on her that could get her disbarred.
Have you searched Frank report for her name? He’s exposed many of them.
He hasn’t exposed this one. She’s the nastiest of all because she works at lot with DCF and pretends to be a child welfare advocate.
Let’s put it this way. She is on tape demanding a restaurant remove a $4 charge on her bill, while observing a parent with their kid and being paid hundreds of dollars to do so. Then as she was walking out of that fully packed restaurant announced in a loud voice she’s not leaving a tip (because she was unhappy with the service) multiple times for all to hear.
How do GALs specifically work with the judges? Are you saying they communicate with judges ex parte to get the outcomes they want?
Wow that is how the system works. So clear