Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Hollywood Actor Is In Prison Now - The Zach Horwitz story

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

This is the story of Zach Horwitz aka Zach Avery and his ponzi scheme

On December 12, Disney Plus invites you to go behind the scenes with Taylor Swift in an exclusive six-episode docu-series. I wanted to give something to the fans that they didn't expect. The only thing left is to close the book. The End of an Era. And don't miss Taylor Swift, the era's tour, the final show, featuring for the first time the tortured poets department. Streaming December 12, only on Disney Plus. 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 in his juice bar. That billionaire is Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. So Zach 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, Mallory, and he shows her this email from Howard. And they're all excited and just like that, boom. They moved 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 fake the email and everything. And he tells this big lie so that he can convince Mallory 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 L.A.

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 Mallory, 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 class. And he's going on auditions, and he's putting himself on tape. But as it turns out, landing a role 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 lie he told Mallory.

Hey, I got this connection to billionaire Howard Shultz, 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 low-budget 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 will call Day Trader Jake. And so Zach convinces Day Trader Jake to invest 30 $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 DayTrader 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 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 Mallory 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 Mallory 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 cellar, a theater, and look at this fucking 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 five 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 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 bull's shing 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 emails that are supposed to be from execs 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's 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 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, DayTrader 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 mugshot, but he's an actor, so I do have a headshot. So here's his headshot. And allegedly, the same day he got arrested, his wife Mallory 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.