Back in 2021, Ozy Media’s empire of spammy newsletters and cringey videos started to crumble under scrutiny. Ben Smith, then the media columnist for The New York Times, famously detailed how the company’s chief operating officer impersonated a YouTube executive during an investment pitch call with Goldman Sachs. The incident was bizarre, but did it qualify as aggravated identity theft? And was the broader effort by Ozy to secure tens of millions of dollars by embellishing its prospects in the content marketplace, including by inflating revenue and investor interest, tantamount to conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud? These questions will land in the lap of a Brooklyn jury when the criminal trial against Ozy founder Carlos Watson kicks off on May 20.