The New Yorker story "Master of Make-Believe" is a master of must-read. I'd encourage you to read it directly; the site is paywalled, but it may allow a certain number of free articles. In lieu of that, there's this post in much shorter form. Whichever you read, you'll see that it's an allegory of a national menace. 
The story speaks to the fall — there was never a rise in his first chosen field — of actor Zach Horwitz, his stage name, Zach Avery. That you never heard of him a few years back is explained in the preceding sentence. Or, there's this version: He was, writes The New Yorker's Evan Osnos, "a terrible actor." One of his exasperated directors described the troubles he had with Horwitz as like "dealing with a dead horse."
The terrible actor did however possess one nearly unsurpassable talent. He was an extraordinarily gifted swindler — nearly but not quite unsurpassable as long as his swindling doppelgänger lives. He executed what Osnos calls "the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of Hollywood." Pretty quickly he bilked investors out of more than $690 million, largely through buncos of nonexistent movie projects.
In 2013 Horwitz co-founded 1INMM Productions in Los Angeles. Its putative business was producing, buying and distributing films to theatres. Two years later he claimed ownership of 49 movies, and that his business hadn't lost a dime. And so enchanted investors kicked in around $650 million for commercial deals — which also didn't exist — with HBO and Netflix. As all Ponzi schemes go, Horwitz used new investments to pay off old investments.
He also used them to accessorize his life; particulars such as interior decorating, $706,000; a couple luxury cars, $605,000; chartered jets and yacht excursions, $345,000. There was more, lots more, including Amex bills of almost $7 million, a $5.7 million home, even $54,600 for a “luxury watch subscription.”
And it all came crashing down in 2019. Horwitz could no longer pay off investors. Not his fault. He cast blame on HBO and Netflix, accusing them of reneging on movie deals they had with 1INMM Productions, which, as noted, never existed. (But he never founded a bogus charity whose funds he used for his own purposes. Hence he was just like Avis, always #2.) He also had no distribution rights.
He forged hundreds of contracts with the two film companies as well as personal correspondence with them. From there it was a speedy four-door black Lincoln trip with the FBI, which was curious about his coming up a bit short on investor payoffs, roughly $227 million.
And from there the terrible actor yet supremely gifted swindler exchanged his multimillion-dollar home for a long-term apartment lease at the Federal Correctional Institute at Terminal Island near L.A. Once settled in, Horwitz wrote on his website — yes, federal prisoners may have websites on which they can write for 15 minutes each sitting, notes Osnos — disingenuous testaments to his blossoming rehabilitation.
He learned the big house patois required of a reforming mind from the most exacting fsource, the prison's therapists. Locking on to what appears to be soulfully charged psychological boilerplate and then disgorging it like a circus seal can, as we and the therapists know, help spring a prisoner earlier than his mandated sentence.
In Horwitz's case, his otherwise ironclad federal lease is for 20 years, thus he has abundant reason to try to swindle his therapists and parole board. And God love him, he's become as expert in this as he was in the scam business. He has the parlance of rehabilitation almost perfected.
Osnos observes that Horwitz writes about his joyous reformations such as the "journey" of "mending the wounds" and unearthing "genuine emotion." Incarceration has made him "healthier ... every single day." And he's conjured up a new con of becoming an instructor in classes for his fellow inmates — the course title: "Emotional Intelligence Through Acting."
In correspondence with Osnos he wrote that he could provide his students with a "safe space to express vulnerability." About his dream of liberating and sharing sensitivities, Osnos also observes that "for all his talk of expressing vulnerability, he was still unwilling to answer questions on the record."
Perhaps I seem cynical and harsh, perhaps Evan Osnos too. I'd say realistic and sorrowful. Zach Horwitz appears to have learned only some new angles of deceit. Meanwhile he'll sadly lose out on learning what's authentically valuable in life, beginning with what I see as the most valuable: true learning.
Whether cynical or realistic, I do empathize with some of America's imprisoned, and I'm tangentially familiar with alternatives to the grimness of their current biographies. As a senior my daughter interned for a university program, the Education Justice Project, which, as its name says, offers education to men incarcerated at a nearby state prison.
I've read and seen EJP's success stories. They're remarkable and heartwarming: former lawbreakers who turned their lives around by acquiring new knowledge and skills and deploying them in life on the outside.
As for Zach? As a free man he'll likely return to the one craft in which he truly excelled — wind up on the inside again.