This Hollywood actor is in prison now

so this relatively unknown actor is Rich now he just took in over $690 million and he did it basically by just using his Charming personality so how did he get so rich now the guy's name is Zach and Zach's an aspiring actor and he really wants to be famous but unfortunately for him he's not but he will be but for now he's just a guy who runs a juice bar in Chicago but then one day he writes a billionaire asking him to invest invest in his juice bar that billionaire is Howard Schulz the CEO of Starbucks so Zack writes Howard asking him to invest thinking I don't know it's worth a shot but then surprisingly Howard Schultz writes him back and he says that he's really impressed with the business plan that Zach pitched him but that he doesn't want to invest in the juice bar however he does want to invest in Zach he wants him to come work for him at his Venture Capital firm in Los Angeles so then Zach goes to his girlfriend this woman mallerie and he shows her this email from Howard and they're all excited and just like that boom they move to Los Angeles so he can take this new job waiting for him at this Venture Capital firm here's the messed up thing though there is no new job waiting for him at this Venture Capital firm Zach never got a job offer from billionaire Howard Schultz because Howard Schultz never wrote him back Zach made all of that up he faked the email and everything and he tells this big lie so that he can convince mallerie to drop everything and move to Los Angeles with him because remember deep down he's an aspiring actor who really wants to be famous why he doesn't just tell his girlfriend that I don't know so anyway pow they're now in LA and Zach has got to keep this lie going so several times a week he'll leave his apartment for hours at a time and he tells mallerie oh I'm off to work I've got an important meeting but he's really going over to this acting school to secretly take acting classes and he's going on auditions and he's putting himself on tape but as it turns out Landing a roll is hard for him mostly because his acting sucks I am completely and utterly in love with you now despite that Zach does have a couple of things going for him like he's charming and he's driven and at some point over dinner he meets these two Julio and Diego and Julio and Diego are brothers and they're also Indie filmmakers like they mostly make short films and they really hit it off with Zach and they become friends and Zach he eventually tells them the same same lie he told mallerie hey I got this connection to billionaire Howard Schultz and I can get him to invest in your movies so the three of them start a production company and they end up buying the rights to lowbudget English language movies and distributing them in Latin American countries and this is a legit business model but they need Capital to get it going so Zach hits up an old College buddy of his who works in investing a buddy we'll call day trader Jake and so Zach convinces day trader Jake to invest $37,000 into his new movie distribution business promising him hey Howard Schultz invested in my company and you'll make a quick return he even shows him fake licensing agreements from Sony once he just typed up in Microsoft Word so day trader Jake agrees to invest $37,000 and within a few months Zach actually does pay him back with interest so then day trader Jake tells his other investor friends hey invest in Zach's movie company he'll pay you back quick with interest so then all of those friends start investing partly based on the LIE that Howard Schultz is involved and partly based on the fact that Zach forged even more fake licensing agreements from Netflix and HBO ones that he again just typed up on Microsoft Word now in order to pay all these new investors back Zach turns his business into a straight up Ponzi scheme he starts taking money from the new investors and using it to pay back the old investors but here's the thing though this works really well for him because for now all of these investors are getting paid paid back with interest and so then more people hear about what he's doing and they invest in the company and then even more people hear about it and then they start investing and it starts with like tens of thousands of dollars and soon people are investing millions of dollars at a time into his movie Distribution Company because they all appear to be making a return now at this point in the story Zach is barely Distributing movies at all because the real money's in the Ponzi scheme he's doing and of course he's paying himself during all of this too millions of dollars meanwhile his girlfriend mallerie has no idea he's scamming she's thinking wow his movie business is doing really well I'm so grateful for Howard Schultz and so mallerie marries him thinking he's this incredible businessman and suddenly they're both living this baller ass lifestyle driving a new Mercedes driving a new Audi constantly hitting up Las Vegas casinos and spending tens of thousands of dollars at a time they go and buy a $5.7 million house like look at this it's got a pool with a hot tub a gym a wine seller a theater and look at this closet look at it and not only that with all this newfound money Zach is finally able to finance movie projects that he can act in because remember his goal is still to be an actor and to be famous so then bam he gets some acting roles in some small movies one of them is actually this Joker fan film which they produced and put on YouTube where Zach actually plays the Joker sorry I couldn't quite catch that and yeah he's still not that great of an actor but at least his Ponzi scheme is going well until at this point Zach's been running this scam for over 5 years and he's managing the money of over 250 investors and he's taken over $690 Million worth of Investments some of it he's paid back but here's where it all starts to fall apart every Ponzi scheme is destined to fail because at some point point you run out of new investors to pay back the old investors and so suddenly Kaboom one day Zach isn't able to deliver on a round of payments so his old investors are like yo Zach where's my money at and so then Zach does what he does best he turns on his charm and he starts bullshitting everyone telling them all kinds of excuses oh HBO is reorganizing or oh Netflix is in the middle of an audit so the streaming services are late paying me so to buy some time he types up these fake email emails that are supposed to be from exec at HBO and Netflix and these emails have HBO and Netflix apologizing for the late payments and that they'll get the payments out soon and he shows these fake emails to the investors and they believe him and it satisfies everyone for a while then another year goes by and Zach still hasn't paid his investors back and at this point all the investors are fed up and they're tired of the excuses and some of them they go and they file a lawsuit against Zach and his company so then the lawyers involved have to subpoena Netflix for their financial records because Zach told them that this was all Netflix's fault and they're like hey Zach says you owe him money and therefore he can't pay us and Netflix is like uh we have no record of ever doing business with this Zach guy or his company and so the lawyer right back and they're like uh what about all these licensing agreements you signed and then they send Netflix the fake licensing agreements that Zach had given them that he typed up in Microsoft Word along with all of the fake email emails that Zach had fabricated and Netflix looks at it and they're like uh these are fraudulent and this is a huge deal and that is when everyone involved starts to piece all of this together and they come to the conclusion that Zach is running a Ponzi scheme and of course everyone is pissed off and they're disgusted and they want to take Zach down but no one is more pissed off and disgusted than his old College buddy day trader Jake because Jake was the very first investor and he feels bad because he's the one who got all of those other investors involved so he has to go and contact all of those other investors and shamefully tell them he may have accidentally involved all of them in a con and by sheer coincidence I'm sure it's right around that time that old Zach hits him up and he sends him an email and he asks him for even more money but at this point day trader Jake has had enough and he contacts the FBI and so then boom the FBI raids Zach's house and they arrest Zach and I don't have a mug shot but he's an actor so I do have a head shot so here's his headshot and allegedly the same day he got arrested his wife mallerie files for divorce good for her meanwhile Zach takes a plea deal and he gets sentenced to 20 years in prison for this Ponzi scheme plus he has to pay back $230 million in restitution to all the people he defrauded but on the bright side I guess he is sort of famous now

Channel: Ray William Johnson

Views: 804,392

Keywords: zach horwitz audition, zach horowitz interview, zach horwitz american greed, zach horowitz movie, zach avery, zach horwitz, zach avery audition, zach avery ponzi scheme, zach avery interview, zach avery last moment of clarity, zach avery scenes, ray william johnson, raywilliamjohnson, ponzi scheme, hollywood

Id: __BbY4QrrKI

Length: 8min 58sec (538 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 02 2024