Producer David Ozer will spend 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud in two separate cases, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California announced Tuesday.
Ozer, who had been charged with embezzling more than $400,000 from television productions, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. to pay $399,344.52 in restitution. He’s free on a $25,000 bond.
Screen Media Films/Courtesy Everett
Nicolas Cage in 2021 movie ‘Willy’s Wonderland,’ which was produced by David Ozer
The 59-year-old from Roslyn Heights, N.Y., served as president of Strong Studios Inc., whose website domain is now for sale, and was based in Charlotte, N.C. Two of the organization’s affected projects include the unreleased series Safehaven, a supernatural story centered on a teenage comic book artist whose drawings come to life, and Endangered. The latter was a planned TV adaptation of crime writer Rudie Van Rensburg’s 2020 book Piranha, which is based on rhino poaching.
Officials said that Ozer took roughly $214,486 from the biggest financial backer of Safehaven, Ravenwood-Productions LLC, from February 2023 to January 2024 for fake production expenses. He created false invoices and a forged letter supposedly from his accountant, which he sent to Ravenswood.
Then, between March 2023 to June 2024, Ozer convinced two people to loan him money for Endangered, in exchange for being named executive producers. Officials said Ozer collected money from someone else supposedly to write a script, only for it to be discovered later that the writer had not been paid. Ozer swindled $207,100 from that project, falsifying bank records and forging correspondence from another producer to cover his tracks, officials said.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Ozer did not respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment.
His producer credits date back to 2015 on IMDb, including TV’s Wynonna Earp and 2021 movie Willy’s Wonderland, which starred Nicolas Cage.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
