Trump commutes the sentence of Ozy Media co-founder Carlos Watson

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of Ozy Media co-founder Carlos Watson, a White House official said Friday, just before Watson was due to report to prison for a nearly 10-year sentence in a financial conspiracy case.

Watson was convicted last year in a closely watched case that showcased the implosion of an ambitious startup company at a time of turmoil in the media industry.

The commutation was confirmed by a senior White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the decision and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Trump has aggressively used his presidential power to commute sentences and issue pardons for people who he believes were treated unfairly by the justice system. The president himself was convicted last year in a case involving hush money payments, part of what he has described as a politically motivated witch hunt against him.

Watson’s commutation was among a string of other acts of clemency revealed by the White House on Friday. They included Trevor Milton, the founder of electric vehicle company Nikola, who had been sentenced to four years for fraudulently exaggerating the potential of his technology and was pardoned; and three entrepreneurs who founded and helped run the cryptocurrency exchange BITMEX, which was ordered to pay a $100 million fine earlier this year after prosecutors said it “willfully flouted U.S. anti-money laundering laws to boost revenue.” They had been sentenced to probation and were also pardoned.

Ozy was founded in 2012 on a premise of providing a fresh, sophisticated-but-not-stuffy take on politics, culture and more — billed as “the new and the next” — while amplifying minority and marginalized voices.

But prosecutors said Watson deceived investors and lenders by inflating revenue numbers and suggesting deals were final when they were not. At one point, Watson’s co-founder pretended to be a YouTube executive on a phone call with potential investors, according to prosecutors.

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.”

Chris Megerian, The Associated Press