Senior entertainment executive David Ozer was sentenced to 18 months in prison for deceiving investors on TV shows "Safehaven" and "Endangered."

Ozer, 59, pleaded guilty last year to embezzle $214,000 from "Safehaven" investors by creating fake invoices and fake letters from his accountants. After the request, other victims proposed separate plans related to “endangered” development. Ozer pleaded guilty to a second wire fraud charge in January.

In addition to his term in prison, Judge Stanley Blumenfeld ordered Ozer to pay $399,000 on Tuesday. Prosecutors demanded a 33-month prison sentence, while his defense believes he should only face one year.

"The defendant is an experienced businessman in the entertainment industry," the prosecutor said in a sentencing memorandum. "He knew it was wrong to misappropriate funds from the company's main financial backers, and he knew it was wrong to abuse funds from individual investors. The defendant did these things anyway."

In a letter to the court, Ozel admitted that he made “a terrible mistake that changed my life.”

According to his defense, in May 2022, Ozer began looking for investment in business trips, when he started chatting on a hook-up app, “with the woman he thought was a woman looking for a successful man.” His defense said that after he sent a “harmless photo and several messages”, the connection began to threaten that he would expose him to his wife and family if he didn’t pay the ransom.

According to the Defense Memorandum, Ozer eventually sent $275,000 to the ransomists to avoid embarrassment. His defense said the payments caused him serious financial difficulties, including threatened foreclosures, resulting in him creating false invoices and attacking production funds.

"The funds I abused are not luxury," Ozel told the judge. "Instead, I tried to protect my family, career and my name. ... The fake invoices I created were for buying time - a very stupid decision made under extreme coercion. I knew it was wrong, no matter what my intentions were."

As a result, he lost 29 years of marriage, professional reputation and career.

Ravenwood Productions, a leading investor in “Safehaven,” sued Ozer in April 2024, accusing Ozer of using production funds to pay the mortgage and “arrange his own pockets.” As part of the lawsuit, Ravenwood controls the 10-episode series, which was shot in Canada in 2022 and has not yet been released.

According to prosecutors, Ozer deceived five other investors, including two who were promised to gain credibility as executive producers in "endangered." Prosecutors claimed that one of the victims (losed $90,000) suffered enormous difficulties, including being expelled from her apartment and taking back the car. She also couldn't afford to pay her parents' mortgage.

Prosecutors said two other victims stood up after their second plead guilty plea.