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Prominent tech entrepreneurs Omar Amanat and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman were found guilty on numerous accounts of fraudulent charges in their dealings with former video management company KIT digital.
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Both Amanat and Tuzman have led successful but controversial entrepreneurial careers — and their guilty verdict marks a striking fall from prominence.
For the past six weeks, a tangled case of complex fraud leveled against two prominent tech entrepreneurs unfolded in federal court. On December 26, the trial's defendants, Omar Amanat and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, were found guilty on numerous accounts of fraudulent charges, as originally reported by Bloomberg.
For both Amanat and Tuzman, the conviction is a striking fall from power: The two defendants have made millions of dollars and led successful entrepreneurial careers that have all but unraveled over the course of the past year.
The court case revealed a series of convoluted legal infractions performed by Amanat and Tuzman in their work with the presently insolvent video-technology company, KIT Digital, a former multi-million dollar leader in the cloud-based video management industry.
According to Bloomberg, Tuzman, who served as the company's CEO, and Amanat, who dealt in a series of company investments, covered up losses, inflated the value of shares, and defrauded investors.
The pair are expected to serve a minimum of a decade in jail and their sentencing will be delivered in April 2018.
Here's a breakdown of Amanat and Tuzman's descent:
Lavish wealth and lurid lawsuits
By the time he was 30 years old, Omar Amanat had sold off his brokerage firm, Tradespace, for $100 million. Amanat was already flush in wealth and had turned his interests towards philanthropy and film production, flaunting connections with A-list celebrities like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. He was known for his lavish lifestyle, an tendency for quoting the Persian poet Rumi, and appearing in designer garb alongside his wife, supermodel Helena Houdova, at high-profile events.
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But despite Amanat's effortless exterior, a series of sensational controversies had begun to dog his career.
In 2014, a multi-million-dollar real estate deal in Thailand collapsed amid a lurid lawsuit with Amanat and his business partner, the Russian oligarch Vladislav Doronin.
Two years later, Amanat's name was once more featured prominently in the papers. He had leased his lavish Hampton home to a hedge-fund trader, Brett Barna, who allegedly trashed the $20 million estate in a widely publicized madcap party.