Gene Maddaus Senior Media WriterThe CEO of a reality TV production company has agreed to plead guilty to defrauding a lender out of $2 million, prosecutors said Tuesday.Jonathan Lee Smith, CEO of Hoplite Entertainment, is expected to face a sentence of 33 to 41 months in prison.
According to the criminal complaint, Smith used fraudulent license agreements to induce the lender to provide the loan.The lender, Bay Point Capital Partners, previously filed a federal lawsuit containing identical allegations against Hoplite.According to the suit, filed in Atlanta in January, Smith claimed that he was expecting to receive $3.4 million from licensing deals with three media outlets: Screen Media/Crackle/Sony, Fight Channel and Big Media/National.
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