Print 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.