Omar Amanat — who was once dubbed “the most powerful person in Hollywood you’ve never heard of” — was found guilty of defrauding investors in a tech startup reportedly at the center of a complex fraud that spanned from New York to Dubai.
Amanat, who had boasted that he had produced some of the “Twilight” films and famously fought a legal battle with billionaire Vladislav Doronin over the ultraluxury Aman Resorts, was found guilty Tuesday of defrauding investors by manipulating shares for the digital-video software startup KIT Digital Inc. by a federal jury in Manhattan following a six-week trial, Bloomberg reported.
Also found guilty of fraud was Amanat associate Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, the former KIT Digital CEO and Harvard graduate who spent more than four years working in emerging markets at Goldman Sachs.
He was arrested in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2015 on suspicion of accounting fraud, and extradited back to the US to face trial.
Both Tuzman and Amanat had been accused of conspiring to inflate KIT’s trading volume and share price between 2008 and 2011 in an effort to hide their devastating losses. In a press release, then-US Attorney Preet Bharara charged that Amanat cheated investors “of millions of dollars through years of lies and deceit.”
Globe-trotting Amanat was accused of hiding trading losses at Dubai-based Enable Invest Ltd., a fund run by his brother, during the financial crisis, according to Bloomberg. Investors told jurors they were dazzled by Amanat’s claims of Hollywood ties and that he had “bragged about partying with . . . Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and having lunch with . . . Harvey Weinstein,” claims that sources tell Page Six are false.
Amanat — whose attorney didn’t get back to us on Tuesday — was involved in a bitter fight with Doronin over ownership of Aman Resorts after their partnership shattered, with the Russian-born mogul calling Amanat a “serial swindler.”
Doronin secured full control of Aman Group in a 2016 UK High Court settlement.