“In the Heart of the Sea” producer David Bergstein has been found guilty of cheating investors out of $26 million.
According to court documents obtained by TheWrap, Bergstein was found guilty Thursday on seven counts, including Wire Fraud, Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud, Securities Fraud, Investment Advisor Fraud and Conspiracy to Commit Investment Advisor Fraud & Securities Fraud.
According to Reuters, Bergstein was the chief executive of merchant banking firm Cyrano Group Inc, at the time of his arrest in 2016. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 8.
In 2016, he and Keith Wellner, former general counsel of Weston Capital Asset Management, were accused of perpetrating a scheme to conceal information from Weston investors, and of transferring money from one pool of investors to make payments to another.
The pair were also accused of misappropriating investors’ funds for their own personal financial gain. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in a related civil suit, claimed Bergstein took over $5.8 million to support his “extravagant lifestyle.”
According to Reuters, Wellner pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecutors. In 2016, Weston’s founder Albert Hallach pleaded guilty to charges that he schemed to defraud investors in the company.
Bergstein was previously the head of film production companies ThinkFilm and Capitol Films Development. He also held an advisory role in the Walt Disney Company’s 2010 sale of Miramax. Bergstein also produced Sidney Lumet’s “Before the Devil Knows Your Dead,” “The Whole Ten Yards” with Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry, “Laws of Attraction” with Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan, and “Father of Invention” with Kevin Spacey and John Stamos.