A Netflix director who is accused of scamming $11 million out of the streaming giant and spending it on crypto and fast cars has been arrested on wire fraud and money laundering charges.
In 2018, Carl Erik Rinsch—director of the critical and commercial flop 47 Ronin starring Keanu Reeves—found himself at the center of an intense bidding war over the rights to a sci-fi TV show called White Horse about artificial humans.
Netflix eventually won the deal and sank around $55 million into the project, giving Rinsch near-total budgetary and creative control, but not a single episode of the show was ever completed, according to prosecutors.
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Instead, Rinsch is accused of wasting millions on a series of cryptocurrency and stock market investments, as well as using the money to finance a lavish lifestyle which saw him buy a fleet of Rolls Royces, a Ferrari and designer clothes, according to the indictment.
Rinsch was initially given a budget of $44 million to work on the show, but successfully petitioned Netflix for an additional $11 million, prosecutors claim.
But after receiving the additional funds, the director is accused of funnelling them into a personal brokerage account and making a series of failed investments which saw him lose around half of the $11 million in just two months.
By the time the COVID-19 pandemic shut down production in 2020, Rinsch had missed a number of production milestones, and Netflix bosses were reportedly growing weary of his increasingly erratic behavior. The New York Times reported that court papers in a divorce proceeding claimed that he sent a number of text messages claiming to have discovered the coronavirus' “secret transmission mechanism” and boasting that he could predict lightning strikes and volcanic eruptions.
Prosecutors allege that Rinsch later plowed the rest of the money into the cryptocurrency markets and managed to recoup his losses, making around $27 million, which he then transferred into a personal bank account.
He then allegedly embarked on a lavish spending spree which saw him spend around $10 million on personal expenses and luxury goods, which prosecutors claim included $3.8 million on furniture and antiques, $2.4 million for five Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari, $1.8 million on credit card bills and $652,000 on watches and clothes.
Rinsch is also alleged to have spent around $1 million on lawyers to sue Netflix for more money, court documents claim.
The 47-year-old director was arrested in West Hollywood, California, and had an initial court hearing on Tuesday.
Appearing in court wearing jeans and a turtleneck sweater, he did not enter a plea and only spoke to answer the judge’s questions.
When asked if he’d read the indictment, Rinsch responded, “not cover to cover,” but told the court he understood the charges against him.
He was released on bail after paying a $100,000 bond to ensure he would appear in court in New York, where the charges against him were filed.
