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President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the criminal fraud sentence of Carlos Watson, a co-founder of Ozy Media, as well as the probation sentence imposed on the now-defunct company, and pardoned three co-founders and an ex-employee of a cryptocurrency exchange that prosecutors said was essentially a laundering platform.”
Watson was expected to report to prison on Friday to begin serving a nearly 10-year sentence for attempting to defraud investors in Ozy Media by misrepresenting its financials, its business relationships, and the likelihood of it being acquired. Watson had also been convicted of aggravated identity theft.
Ozy Media shut down in Oct. 2021 after The New York Times reported that the company’s chief operating officer, Samir Rao, pretended to be a YouTube executive while speaking with Goldman Sachs.
Last month, a federal judge ordered Watson and the company to pay nearly $60 million in forfeiture and more than $36 million in restitution. Trump’s commutation nullifies those penalties, the Times reported.
Other beneficiaries of Trump’s executive powers Friday were Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed—three co-founders of BitMEX, who had each pled guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act. Former head of business development Gregory Dwyer pleaded the same, and was pardoned by Trump as well. All four had been sentenced to varying terms of probation, with the three co-founders being ordered to pay civil fines amounting to $30 million.
In a statement, according to CNBC, Delo wrote in part, “This full and unconditional pardon by President Trump is a vindication of the position we have always held—that BitMEX, my co-founders, and I should never have been charged with a criminal offense through an obscure, antiquated law.”
Earlier Friday, Trump doled out another pardon to Trevor Milton, the founder of the electric and hydrogen-powered truck startup Nikola. Milton, who donated to pro-Trump political action committees last year, was convicted of securities and wire fraud in 2022. He was sentenced to four years in prison the following year, but was free on bond during his appeal.
Milton’s lawyer is Brad Bondi, the brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
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