Former MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe has pleaded guilty to securities fraud conspiracy

Lowe became the CEO of MoviePass in the spring of 2016, taking the reins from cofounder Stacy Spikes. A year later, Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY) became the parent company of MoviePass. Lowe and HMNY CEO Ted Farnsworth launched a $10-a-month plan that brought huge popularity to the service. As subscriptions soared into the millions, HMNY’s stock skyrocketed.

However, the $10 plan — which allowed subscribers to see a movie a day in theaters — was not sustainable, and the company burned through hundreds of millions of dollars. By 2020, both MoviePass and HMNY went bankrupt.

Lowe and Farnsworth were charged in a securities fraud case in 2022 by the Department of Justice. The DOJ alleged that Lowe and Farnsworth “engaged in a scheme to defraud investors through materially false and misleading representations relating to HMNY and MoviePass’s business and operations to artificially inflate the price of HMNY’s stock and attract new investors.”

Farnsworth, whose bail was revoked in August 2023, is currently in Florida prison awaiting his trial in March.

Spikes, who was ousted by Lowe and Farnsworth from MoviePass in 2018, bought back the company in 2021.

MoviePass — under Spikes’ leadership — is currently available nationwide.

The story of the rise and fall of MoviePass is chronicled in the documentary “MoviePass, MovieCrash,” which was released in May and is based on BI’s award-winning reporting.