After Watson's sentencing, then-Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said the jury had determined that “Watson was a con man who told lie upon lie upon lie to deceive investors into buying stock in his company.”
Ozy Media “collapsed under the weight of Watson’s dishonest schemes,” Peace said.
But Watson, who is Black, called the case “a modern lynching" and argued that he was the victim of “selective prosecution."
“I made mistakes. I’m very, very sorry that people are hurt, myself included,” Watson said, but “I don’t think it’s fair.”
U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee said during sentencing that the “quantum of dishonesty in this case is exceptional.”