Carl Rinsch spent years in director jail. Now he’s facing real jail.
A Manhattan federal jury on Thursday found Rinsch guilty on charges that he scammed Netflix out of $11 million in a lavish spending spree.
After less than five hours of deliberation, the jury said it found Rinsch guilty on all seven counts, including fraud, money laundering, and illegal money transmission. He faces up to 90 years in prison, but is expected to receive a far less severe sentence.
Most of the 12 jurors walked into the jury box with somber expressions on their faces. Rinsch, wearing a purple-plaid tie and matching pocket square, looked straight at the judge with a neutral expression as the foreman read the verdict.
Rinsch declined to comment to Business Insider while leaving the courtroom. In an email, his attorney Benjamin Zeman said the verdict was an ominous sign for artists who clash with companies bankrolling their work.
“I fear that this could set a dangerous precedent for artists who become embroiled in contractual and creative disputes with their benefactors, in this case one of the largest media companies in the world, finding themselves indicted by the federal government for fraud,” Zeman wrote.
Rinsch is scheduled to be sentenced on April 17.
The trial centered on the millions of dollars Netflix paid Rinsch to film “White Horse,” a sci-fi epic about a world where clone-like beings, after a schism with humankind, create their own society walled off from the rest of the world. Rinsch testified in his own defense earlier this week.
Rinsch — a Ridley Scott protégé who previously directed the Keanu Reeves-starring “47 Ronin” — shot footage for “White Horse” on two continents. But by the fall of 2019, he exceeded the $44 million Netflix budgeted for the project and asked for more money.
In March of 2020, after months of negotiations, the streaming service agreed to give Rinsch’s production company another $11 million.
Then, everything went wrong.
On the witness stand in Manhattan federal court, Rinsch said he believed the bulk of the $11 million was meant to reimburse him for keeping the production of “White Horse” afloat the previous fall, when it had gone over-budget. He testified that Netflix expected him to conduct only “soft pre-production” on a potential second season.
Rinsch had grand ambitions. He said he envisioned a franchise like “Star Wars” and “Game of Thrones,” complete with an elaborate fantasy world, that could become part of Netflix’s catalogue.
Former Netflix executives testified in the trial that they had previously agreed on one season, and the $11 million was meant to go toward finishing episodes that Rinsch never delivered. According to prosecutors, the entire negotiation for the $11 million was a sham, and Rinsch meant to defraud the company all along.
At closing arguments on Wednesday, Assistant US Attorney David Markewitz presented the jury with a Buzzfeed-style list of “10 Ways You Know Carl Rinsch is Guilty.” He argued that it’s absurd to think Rinsch’s risky stock and cryptocurrency trades, as well as his lavish purchases — such as a $439,000 handmade Hastens mattress — could have been intended for the production of “White Horse.” He pointed out that Rinch’s 2021 purchases of Rolls-Royces were insured in his own name, rather than insured by Netflix.
“In a TV show, a mattress is going to be covered by sheets and a blanket,” Markewitz told the jury. “No one watching ‘White Horse’ from home is going to have any idea what is under those linens.”
Daniel McGuinness, an attorney representing Rinsch, told the jury that Rinsch never had the “intent” required to find him guilty.
Rinsch always believed Netflix owed him about $11 million in reimbursement, McGuinness said, pointing to emails and text messages leading up to the March 2020 agreement, and never said he would spend all the money on additional production for “White Horse.”
In reality, according to McGuinness, the situation was a “contract dispute” based on misunderstandings between Rinsch and Netflix.
“They were talking past each other, and the government has turned it into a nefarious fraud conspiracy,” McGuinness said.
“Carl Erik Rinsch took $11 million meant for a TV show and gambled it on speculative stock options and crypto transactions,” Jay Clayton, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement following the verdict. “Today’s conviction shows that when someone steals from investors, we will follow the money and hold them accountable.”
Jurors sent multiple notes to the judge on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. They asked for transcripts of key witness testimony and an additional laptop to review the trial exhibits.
But shortly after noon on Thursday, they had come to a unanimous conclusion: Rinsch was guilty.
This story has been updated to include a comment from Rinsch’s lawyer.
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