<\/p>\n
\n\tA producer sued Amazon Studios, Vice Studios and director Rebecca Chaiklin on Thursday, alleging that he was falsely portrayed as an accomplice of convicted fraudster Zach Horwitz within the recent documentary series \u201cHollywood Hustler: Glitz, Glam, Scam.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe producer, Julio Hallivis, contends that his fame has been ruined by the false implication that he acted as an informant and was complicit in Horwitz\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n
\n\tHorwitz is serving a 20-year sentence over what federal prosecutors described as a $650 million Ponzi scheme. He pleaded guilty to allegations that he forged contracts with Netflix and HBO to dupe some 250 investors.<\/p>\n
\n\tHallivis was his business partner in 1inMM Productions, which produced just a few movies. In response to the lawsuit, Hallivis was not involved in financing and knew nothing concerning the Ponzi scheme until Horwitz was arrested.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe lawsuit alleges that the three-episode docuseries, which was presented by Amazon MGM Studios and produced by Library Movies, Vice Studios and Article 19 Movies, repeatedly suggests that Hallivis was involved within the fraud.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIn consequence of defendants\u2019 desire to sensationalize the series and boost viewer numbers, Hallivis\u2019 fame and profession have been destroyed, causing him great personal suffering and lack of earnings,\u201d the suit states.<\/p>\n
\n\tHallivis declined to be interviewed for \u201cHollywood Hustler: Glitz, Glam, Scam,\u201d which premiered Oct. 17 on Prime Video. The criticism argues that he’s a personal figure, which sets a lower bar to prove defamation.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe documentary includes an interview with Alex Loftus, a civil attorney, who was quoted saying that Horwitz \u201ccouldn\u2019t do that alone.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI consider that he\u2019s protecting someone in his inner circle,\u201d Loftus said.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe documentary shows photos of Horwitz and Hallivis together, and includes commentary that Hallivis was \u201cintense,\u201d and \u201con edge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAn interviewee is quoted as saying that Hallivis was paranoid and \u201cjust gave the impression of he saw something coming, I feel, down the pipe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe lawsuit states that the scene is defamatory \u201csince it implies that Hallivis was assisting Horwitz in his criminal activities and because of this, he was nervous, sad, and paranoid, and he feared that it was only a matter of time before he was going to be caught.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe ultimate episode also features a suggestion that Hallivis and his brother, Diego, became informants to assist the federal government\u2019s case against Horwitz, implying that they needed to cooperate to reduce their criminal exposure.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn actual fact, the criticism states, Hallivis was interviewed a single time by the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and was never told that he was suspected of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe episode also features a quote from Loftus, who filed suit on behalf of among the investors: \u201cIf Julio was spending all day and all night with Zach Horwitz for months at a time I don\u2019t see how he may not know that this was a fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tLoftus also said that he didn’t have facts to point out that Hallivis was a fraudster, but \u201cwe’ve got some things you would assume that look pretty bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThese statements suggest that Hallivis was a fraudster, even when Loftus had no conclusive proof,\u201d the criticism states.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn response to the suit, Hallivis has been shunned by former business associates, and even his own brother has told him that they can not work together on account of the reputational damage.<\/p>\n
\n\tHallivis is represented by Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, an attorney who has filed several suits against Netflix on behalf of people that alleged they were defamed in various shows.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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A producer sued Amazon Studios, Vice Studios and director Rebecca Chaiklin on Thursday, alleging that he was falsely portrayed as an accomplice of convicted fraudster Zach Horwitz within the recent documentary series \u201cHollywood Hustler: Glitz, Glam, Scam.\u201d The producer, Julio Hallivis, contends that his fame has been ruined by the false implication that he acted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":345930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20669],"tags":[38,1211,12987,2434,1876,52502,7980],"class_list":["post-345929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hollywood","tag-amazon","tag-defamation","tag-documentary","tag-hit","tag-hollywood","tag-hustler","tag-suit"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345929"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":345932,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345929\/revisions\/345932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}