Former MoviePass CEO admits the $9.95 ‘unlimited’ ticket scheme was fraud

The Verge09-17

MoviePass ex-CEO Mitch Lowe pleaded guilty to securities fraud on Monday over his involvement in a scheme to mislead investors, as reported earlier by Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. With the plea...

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With the plea...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/17/24247051/moviepass-ceo-mitch-lowe-guilty-plea-fraud\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"HMNY","symbol_name":"Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc.","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/17/24247051/moviepass-ceo-mitch-lowe-guilty-plea-fraud","article_id":"2468365345","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":[],"rights":null,"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2468365345","pubTimestamp":1726556913,"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"theverge_highlight","name":"The Verge"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"MoviePass ex-CEO Mitch Lowe pleaded guilty to securities fraud on Monday over his involvement in a scheme to mislead investors, as reported earlier by Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. With the plea","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"theverge.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"HMNY":"Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc.","BK4134":"信息科技咨询与其它服务"},"translate_title":"MoviePass前首席执行官承认9.95美元“无限”门票计划是欺诈","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"HMNY":1},"content_text":"MoviePass ex-CEO Mitch Lowe pleaded guilty to securities fraud on Monday over his involvement in a scheme to mislead investors, as reported earlier by Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. With the plea, Lowe admits to making false representations about the sustainability of a $9.95 monthly plan that promised “unlimited” access to movies in theaters.Lowe, who took over as CEO of MoviePass in 2016, started allowing users to see a movie a day through an unlimited subscription in 2017. But the money-burning tactic eventually led to MoviePass’s demise, with the service shutting down in 2019 and later filing for bankruptcy. Following a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in 2021, the Securities Exchange Commission sued Lowe and Ted Farnsworth, the former CEO of MoviePass parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY), a year later. The agency alleged the pair lied about the unlimited subscription to artificially inflate HMNY’s stock:These representations, which were made to artificially inflate HMNY’s stock price and fraudulently attract new investors, were materially false and misleading... In truth and in fact, and as Coconspirator 1 [Farnsworth] and LOWE knew... The $9.95 “unlimited” plan was a temporary marketing gimmick to drive subscriber growth, and MoviePass was losing money as a result.In addition to a $250,000 fine, Lowe faces up to five years in prison (although a lighter sentence is expected for his cooperation with the investigation, THR reports). Farnsworth remains in federal custody, with his trial over securities fraud scheduled for March 2025. “Mitch is a good man who is looking to move forward with his life,” Lowe’s attorneys, Margot Moss and David Oscar Markus, said in a statement to Variety. “He has accepted responsibility for his actions in this case and will continue to try to make things right.”MoviePass got a reboot last year — and while it still offers a plan at $10 per month, it now puts a cap on the number of movies you can see.","kind":null,"is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.29.2","shortVersion":"4.29.2","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2468365345"}