California Dreamin' Zachary Horwitz was always a dreamer, and
letting those dreams fade away was not an option.
He was going to dream—and dream big—like $227 million big.
That's how much money he swindled from Hollywood investors.
But how did he pull it off?
And what could this no-name actor possibly have to offer these Hollywood big-wigs?
The Gridiron Initially, Horwitz wanted to be a professional
football player, and he was pretty close to accomplishing that goal.
He played college ball for the Indiana Hoosiers and was on track to go pro.
Unfortunately, his dreams of making it to the NFL were squashed by injuries, and he
had to change course.
He began working towards his Doctorate at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
However, it wasn't the science of the mind that fascinated Horwitz the most.
It was the science of acting.
The performing arts had always been of special interest to him; he had participated in the
theater program during his high school years, but his athletic endeavors kept him from pursuing
acting in any serious way.
Now that his football days were officially behind him, he could focus on the thing that
had always been most important to him—acting.
Horwitz took the ultimate leap of faith when he packed up his car, filled it with gas,
and headed west.
Hollywood was in his sights, and while show business is infamously ruthless and competitive,
he had a dream to make it big.
He was going to make it come true—one way or another.
The Hollywood Hustle With his life plans changing drastically overnight,
it seemed natural that a name change was in the cards as well.
He started going by "Zach Avery", a slick, easy-to-remember moniker that was well-suited
for a young, up-and-comer in Hollywood.
He was officially all-in on making it as an actor.
The transition from sports to acting had been done before, which Horwitz, now Avery, found
encouraging.
He wanted to follow in the footsteps of guys like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Terry Crews,
well-known Hollywood superstars who began their careers as professional athletes.
Avery got a handful of roles in smaller projects during his first few years.
They were mostly short films and low-budget features.
In 2014, though, he landed a small, uncredited part in what was by far the biggest movie
of his career, the Brad Pitt-led World War II drama, Fury.
With such a notable title under his belt, Avery hoped to finally jumpstart his acting
career and start earning some bigger roles in more prominent productions.
His big break never really came, though.
He continued to act in small roles here and there, and he was able to work alongside some
big names like Kate Beckinsale, Ralph (Rafe), Fiennes (Fines), and even former Terminator
star Linda Hamilton.
But he never became a star himself.
Most critics were not fans of Avery's work, and you know what they say about one bad review.
The exhausting grind of the Hollywood hustle began to take a toll on Avery, and it wasn't
yielding the results he had hoped.
One in a Million Avery decided it was time to shift gears a
bit.
The athlete-turned-actor now had a wife and child at home to think about.
He stayed in the realm of mainstream filmmaking but left his spot in front of the camera.
He'd eventually move away from film sets entirely.
He started a film production and distribution company called 1inMM (pronounced One in a
Million) Capital.
His plan was to acquire the rights to movies through this newly-formed company and sell
them to large entertainment corporations like Netflix and HBO.
These companies are always looking to expand the library of content available to their
users, apparent by the overwhelming number of movies and TV shows available on their
platforms.
One in a Million Capital served as a middle man between filmmakers and entertainment companies.
Avery's new distribution enterprise became a rousing success - or so it seemed.
He was able to entice several big-money investors into pumping millions upon millions of dollars
into One in a Million Capital.
He did this by assuring them that he was regularly making deals with some of the biggest names
in the entertainment industry.
He gave investors the impression that his previous ties to the film industry, and the
relationships he'd established as an actor, would aid him in his business deals.
Investors were intrigued, and Avery had the receipts to prove it.
He provided documents detailing financial transactions between Avery's company and streaming
behemoths like Netflix and HBO, as well as email correspondence between Avery and many
top executives at these mega-corporations.
Everything checked out, and Avery cashed in.
What was the total haul for One in a Million Capital?
Something in the realm of $227 million, gifted to Avery and the company in the form of loans
and investments over five years.
Not bad for someone struggling to make a name for himself in Hollywood.
The LA Life While his Hollywood dreams took an unexpected
turn, Zach Avery was finally making it in the world of filmmaking.
He was providing a good life for himself and his family in the process.
He traded a cramped LA apartment for a gorgeous $6 million mansion in Beverlywood, a wealthy
neighborhood in West Los Angeles.
His dream home fitted with everything a young guy in his 20s could ask for, including a
luxurious pool, a home gym, an indoor theater, and a basement that housed an impressive 1,000-bottle
wine collection.
While he was by no means a Hollywood A-lister, he was certainly living like one.
With the money he was making through One in a Million Capital, Avery purchased the Beverlywood
home and scored some high-end vehicles for his collection.
He regularly flew in private jets to get around.
To the outside world, Avery looked like every other Hollywould hot-shot.
Last Moment of Clarity He didn't give up on the whole acting gig
either.
While One in a Million was his main source of income, his acting dream remained intact.
In 2018, he finally got his shot at a lead role in the low-budget thriller Last Moment
of Clarity.
He spearheaded a cast that included a handful of established actors, including Samara Weaving,
Carly Chaikin, and Brian Cox.
This was his best chance to break through into Hollywood's upper echelon of performers
and finally realize his lifelong dreams.
But like the title of the movie implies, the project ultimately provided a last moment
of clarity for Avery's career: it wasn't meant to be.
The film was eventually released in 2020 with little to no fanfare, and after a slew of
negative responses, it swiftly faded into obscurity, much like Avery's acting prospects.
Though he had once made the trek to Los Angeles as a naive kid with nothing to lose, he was
now an adult with a family to take care of and a seemingly endless string of rejections
and failures behind him.
Like his dream to play in the NFL, the California dream was quickly fading.
Lying for a Living Avery didn't have much time to mourn the loss
of his acting career.
He was abruptly arrested in April of 2021 on wire fraud charges, securities fraud, and
aggravated identity theft.
These charges were concerning his shady dealings while at the helm of One in a Million Capital.
His investors were shocked.
Avery defrauded them of their hefty investments, using old loans to pay back new ones in classic
Ponzi scheme fashion.
He was also skimming his fair share of cash from the investment pool to fund his personal
life.
The whole operation was a sham, and Avery went to great lengths to make it seem as legit
as possible.
He falsified the financial documents that he went on to show potential investors as
proof of his business dealings with Netflix and HBO.
In reality, One in a Million Capital had no relationship with either of those companies.
But what about the emails back and forth between him and their executives?
As you probably guessed, those were fake, too.
For a while, Avery was able to keep up the charade by keeping investors paid and happy.
As is the case with most scam stories, the money eventually started to dry up in 2019.
Once that happened, Avery had no other option but to stop paying his investors.
Avery blamed the lack of payments on Netflix and HBO, insisting that these companies owed
him money for film rights sales that they were refusing to pay up.
His last-ditch effort to cover up the scam came a month before his arrest.
Avery began seeking investor funds that he said would be used to pursue legal action
against HBO for failing to pay One in a Million Capital what had been agreed upon.
This was yet another in a long stream of lies that Avery told investors, and he was only
able to buy so much time before investigators uncovered his illegal exploits.
The Securities and Exchange Commission froze his assets, and he sat in jail for two weeks
before being bailed out on a $1 million bond.
He now awaits criminal sentencing in federal court.
The Final Bow Horwitz dedicated himself so strongly to the
art of acting that his entire life became something of a movie role.
"Zach Avery" was the character he played on a daily basis, and the investors he routinely
lied to were his audience.
For a while, he convinced them that Zach Avery was real and worthy of their trust.
But like with any movie, the suspension of disbelief only went so far.
His performance wasn't good enough, and the audience stopped believing him.
In his acting pursuits, his bad performances prevented him from being the Hollywood star
he dreamed of becoming when he packed up his car and made the journey from Chicago to LA.
But in his actual day-to-day life, his poor acting cost him much more than a shot at stardom.
It cost him millions of dollars.
It cost him the respect of his family.
It cost him his reputation, and it might just cost him years of his life, years he'll be
spending behind bars.