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The promise of easy money brought Jim Russell to a bar at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Russell, a steel company executive from Las Vegas, had come to meet Zachary Horwitz, a low-level actor seeking investors for his film company.
Horwitz made it sound simple: He would use Russell’s money to buy the rights to cheap movies “Slasher Party,” “Satanic Panic” and the like and then resell them to HBO for distribution in Latin America. He’d pay Russell back in six months with a 15% profit.
Russell had already wired Horwitz more than half a million dollars after a friend vouched for the 30-year-old actor.