President of North Carolina-Based Entertainment Production Company Sentenced to 18 Months in Federal Prison for Fraud

LOS ANGELES – An entertainment-production company president was sentenced today to 18 months in federal prison for embezzling more than $400,000 from a television production and from defrauding investors in various other television productions.

David Ozer, 59, of Roslyn Heights, New York, was sentenced by United States District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr., who also ordered him to pay $399,344.52 in restitution.

Ozer, who is free on $25,000 bond, was charged in two separate federal criminal cases. He pleaded guilty in October 2024 to one count of wire fraud in the first case, then later pleaded guilty on January 28 to an additional wire fraud count in a separate case.

Ozer was the president of Strong Studios Inc., a production company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. He also was the producer of “Safehaven,” a supernatural thriller television series. From February 2023 to January 2024, Ozer defrauded Ravenwood-Productions LLC, the principal financial backer of “Safehaven” by misappropriating approximately $214,486 in production funds from bank accounts for the production.

To create the false appearance that the funds he embezzled were spent on legitimate production costs, Ozer created fraudulent accounting records, including falsified invoices, and forged a letter purportedly from his accountant. In fact, Ozer’s accountant did not write the letter, the contents of the letter were false, and Ozer used his accountant’s name without his accountant’s authorization.

Ozer provided these falsified documents to a lawyer for Strong Studios and caused him to transmit them in an email on January 3, 2024, to a lawyer for Ravenwood-Productions.

In a separate scheme, from March 2023 to June 2024, Ozer enticed two victims to loan him money in connection with a television series titled “Endangered.” In return, Ozer’s victims were promised executive producer credits. He also solicited funds from another victim in connection with drafting a script. Despite Ozer’s claims that the script development was in progress, the victim learned from the screenwriter that the script had not been written nor had the screenwriter been paid by Ozer. Instead, Ozer misappropriated the three victims’ funds, along with two others, for a total of approximately $207,100.

To create the false appearance that the misappropriated funds had been used for their intended purpose, Ozer created fraudulent documents, including falsified bank records, as well as forged correspondence from another producer.

“[Ozer] is an experienced businessman in the entertainment industry,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “He knew it was wrong to embezzle funds from his company’s principal financial backer, and he knew it was wrong to misappropriate funds from individual investors. [Ozer] did these things anyway.”

The FBI investigated these matters.

Assistant United States Attorneys Alexander B. Schwab of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section and Matt Coe-Odess of the General Crimes Section prosecuted these cases.