As The Post has learned, Ozy Media forced a dozen students to eliminate $10,000 in “Genius Awards” after disgraced news site founder Carlos Watson was arrested on federal fraud charges.
Ambitious students – one among them a budding TikTok influencer, others aspiring teachers and tech entrepreneurs – were drawn into Ozy Media’s stunning implosion, which boasted high-ranking sponsors billionaire Marc Lasry and Laurene Powell Jobs, only to face federal scrutiny of dubious business practices.
Ozy Media launched Genius Awards in 2015.
Past recipients include Amanda Gorman, a former National Youth Poet Laureate who rose to national prominence in 2021 after she recited an original poem titled “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration.
The final recipients were told in December that Ozy would supply them with months of funding, expert mentoring and free publicity for his or her startups to “help them realize their dreams.”
Instead, two students told The Post that Ozy Media had cut all ties since mid-March – days after Watson was arrested for allegedly scamming investors out of $50 million – leaving them without funds for his or her promising projects and as an alternative a hole of their biography.
A 3rd student, who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity, confirmed his account.
The show’s presenting sponsor, AT&T, can be silent in regards to the situation.
“Honestly, it was such a rollercoaster,” Youssef Hasweh, a 2023 Genius Award winner and 21-year-old junior on the University of Chicago, told The Post.
Ozy Media’s fame went up in flames after a series of damning reports from the New York Times and other media outlets in late 2021.
The downfall accelerated in February when feds accused Watson of running the once-high-flying startup “like a criminal organization” and attempting to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from investors.
“I took a selfie with Carlos. I fell in love with him once I met him,” Hasweh said. “I feel among the most charismatic people may not have the most effective of intentions. I do not think it is a relationship that will be fixed.”
Watson, who faces 37 years in prison, was charged with attempting to defraud a possible investor by rigging a $600 million takeover bid for Ozy, in addition to other alleged misconduct.
Meanwhile, Hasweh planned to make use of the winning funds to launch a student-led scholarship program for low-income highschool students.
“While our freshman internship was speculated to be the most important internship on our resume, the most important job opportunity ever on our resume, a lot of us will find yourself part-time or barely capable of support ourselves this summer, which is completely devastating,” he added. Hasweh, who has amassed over 100,000 followers on TikTok where he shares education-related suggestions.
The students say they last heard from Ozy in mid-March, when Beverly Watson, Carlos’ sister and editor-in-chief, told them the corporate had been “forced by circumstances to suspend operations”, in response to an email received by The Post.
Beverly Watson said she had “no clear-cut answers” in regards to the way forward for Genius and hinted she would deliver one other update by the tip of March.
“That said, in case you find additional funding opportunities in your summer – please explore them,” Watson told Hasweh in a March 16 email.
A day later, an attorney representing Ozy emailed at the very least one student to say that prosecutors had “murdered operations” and “eliminated all revenue” by taking motion against the corporate.
The lawyer added that Ozy’s guardians “were attempting to recuperate any assets to make a distribution to creditors” but never took further motion.
This 12 months’s Genius Awards were presented in partnership with AT&T and its “Dream in Black” campaign, which goals to “put a special concentrate on students attending historically black colleges and universities,” in response to a press release last September.
An AT&T spokesperson said the corporate was “very disillusioned to learn that the Ozy Media shutdown affected the winners of the Ozy Genius Awards.”
“We need to be certain that these students receive their promised scholarships and we’re looking into this to see what we are able to do,” the spokesperson added.
Asked for comment, Kenneth Montgomery, a lawyer representing Ozy Media and the Watson family within the upcoming fraud trial, blamed the corporate for its failure to honor its promise to fund a federal indictment – which involved each Watson as a person and the corporate itself. .
“The undeniable fact that deserving students have been deprived of faculty funding is an incidental consequence of the federal government’s unprecedented prosecution of OZY Media, one among the few black-owned media corporations in Silicon Valley,” Montgomery said in an announcement to The Post.
“Unsubstantiated criminal charges brought the corporate to a whole standstill and compelled it to stop operations,” Montgomery added. “The Watson family strongly believes in making higher education accessible to all, which is why they co-founded the Achieva College Prep Service long before Mr. Watson founded OZY.”
“All individuals or entities which have valid claims as a part of the corporate’s dissolution process will have the option to submit their claims,” he added.
Ozy first contacted this 12 months’s group of winners in December last 12 months and immediately launched a promotional campaign for the Genius program. All 12 winners shot clips for “The Carlos Watson Show”, which might still be viewed on YouTube and Twitter.
Students received an approximate schedule of this system. One-to-one meetings with Oza staff have been scheduled for February, and a reference to knowledgeable “mentor” for May.
The period from June 21 to September 22 is scheduled for “execution of the project”, with the ultimate presentation of every winner’s accomplished work scheduled for September 29.
Ozy said students are eligible for “project funds” of as much as $10,000, which can be delivered in “three tranches” starting in June.
Hasweh said he and other students were “a bit of confused” as most of February got here and went with no further motion from Ozy Media, but decided to offer the corporate more time to reply.
Instead of an update, students were blinded by the news of Watson’s arrest.
“I googled Ozy Media to see what was happening, and that is once I saw that there was actually an investigation happening,” said Myron Layese, a 21-year-old student at Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts. “I used to be like wow, well it happened. He literally just walked out of left field.”
Without any guidance from Ozy Media, students now don’t have any alternative but to hunt other sources of support for his or her projects – or abandon them entirely.
“We signed contracts, we were involved, and we received messages that did not give us any indication that anything was going to go unsuitable,” Hasweh said. “Now all of us haven’t got internship opportunities, full-time opportunities – and now it’s too late to use.”
“Right now, I’m still open to whatever comes of it,” added Layese, who planned to make use of the cash to fund a virtual reality app called “Stage Fright,” which might use biometrics to assist musicians overcome performance anxiety. “I actually hope this is not a lost cause.”
Prior to this story’s publication, students also expressed frustration that AT&T, a serious sponsor, made no effort to contact them.
“I wish they might speak up or at the very least comment on something,” Layese said. “I feel it is smart for them to take some ownership.”
Two other Oza executives, former chief operating officer Samir Rao and chief of staff Suzee Han, have already pleaded guilty to fraud and other charges. In a separate case, the SEC accused Watson of attempting to extort roughly $50 million from investors.
Watson maintains his innocence. In February, Watson’s lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said he was “deeply disillusioned” by the choice to arrest his client, who had cooperated with investigators.
Months after Watson’s arrest, Hasweh is especially upset that Ozy cited his work with the “Oza Genius Award supporting over 50 young creators” in a defensive statement shared on Instagram on February 24.
“Behind the scenes, I’m even attempting to know if I’m going to get a chance this summer, and so they form of put us on this podium and this pedestal to make Ozy look higher,” Hasweh said.
