How Hollywood’s ‘worst actor ever’ worked with Oscar winners, made $40 million, then FBI exposed his $690 million fraud | Hollywood

Zachary Horwitz’s rise in Hollywood was not meteoric but extravagant. The actor-producer starred in several B-grade films that his business associates produced and also worked with some A-listers, including Ralph Fiennes and Brian Cox. At his peak, he claimed he was worth $40 million and lived in a mansion in Hollywood. But all that came crumbling down when the Feds knocked at his door in connection with a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.

Zach Horwitz adopted the name Zach Avery and became an actor, but also perpetuated a 0 million Ponzi scheme.
Zach Horwitz adopted the name Zach Avery and became an actor, but also perpetuated a $690 million Ponzi scheme.

Zachary Horwitz aka Zach Avery, Hollywood’s ‘worst actor ever’

Born in a Jewish family in California, Zach Horwitz adopted the screenname Zach Avery when he quit and started looking for work as an actor in the late 2000s. He claims his film debut was with the 2009 release G.E.D., but the film’s director, Cess Silvera, claims to have never heard of him. His first recorded role was in the 2011 film The Duel. After a string of minor roles for the next few years, Avery started his own production company, 1inMM Productions, in partnership with Julio and Diego Hallivis. He starred in several B-grade films like Curvature and Hell Is Where the Home Is starting in 2017. Around this time, he also got supporting roles in bigger films. In 2020, he starred alongside Brian Cox in Last Moment of Clarity and the following year with Bruce Dern and Olivia Munn in The Gateway. He also appeared in Ralph Fiennes’ directorial The White Crow in 2018.

Yet, many were surprised by his filmography. A New Yorker article from 2024 quoted one of his former colleagues saying, “He is the worst actor I’ve ever worked with.” Director Michele Civetta said that making Avery act was like “dealing with a dead horse.”

Zach Avery’s luxurious lifestyle

By 2019, Zach Avery, aka Horwitz, was living a luxurious lifestyle. He and his wife Mallory lived in a $6 million home near Beverly Hills, which had a thousand-bottle wine cellar. He would be at the courtside seats at LA Lakers games and hire top R&B artists to perform for friends in private concerts. Avery even asked wife Mallory to quit her job at a salon. According to New Yorker, he told her that they had $40 million, so she did not need to work. They flew by private jet and even helped friends invest money. Avery explained this by claiming his businesses were successful and that he had received $10 million in inheritance. First and foremost of these businesses was 1inMM Productions. Through this, he not only produced films but also acquired the rights to cheap movies and distributed them to the Latin American divisions of Netflix, HBO, and other platforms.

Zach Horwitz after he renamed himself Avery.
Zach Horwitz after he renamed himself Avery.

The Ponzi scheme that shook Hollywood

But the reality was that there was no business. Avery was not buying or selling any movie rights. He found a few distribution contracts and used them to make hundreds of fakes by copy-pasting them in MS Word. After that, he forged the signatures of executives he found on LinkedIn to make them look authentic. As new investors gave him money, he paid off the old ones, often encouraging them to reinvest. But the business was not earning anything. All the money came from investments, and Avery used them for himself and his luxuries.

New Yorker reported that “he sent out fake bank statements and ginned up bogus e-mails and text messages from HBO and Netflix, often using apps to send fake messages to himself at predetermined times. He arranged for a female accomplice, who has never been identified, to impersonate the contact at HBO.” By the end of 2020, the actor had raised $690 million for his bogus business, making it the largest Ponzi scheme in Hollywood history.

Eventually, the law caught up with him. On April 6, 2021, armed FBI agents reached his house and arrested him for wire fraud. His wife, Mallory, filed for divorce before the case reached trial. The trial itself was short, and Avery pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud in October. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay $230 million in restitution. He is currently in prison.

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