Director Carl Erik Rinsch has been arrested for allegedly defrauding $11 million from Netflix – money originally earmarked for an abortive sci-fi series.
Marking the latest chapter in an increasingly outlandish case, filmmaker Carl Erik Rinsch was arrested on Tuesday the 18th March for alleged money laundering and wire fraud.
According to official court documents, Rinsch has been charged with defrauding Netflix out of $11m – a sum of money the director is alleged to have spent on personal investments and luxury items rather than the science fiction TV series he’d originally agreed to make.
The case goes back to 2018, when Netflix signed a deal with Rinsch to make a sci-fi series called White Horse (later re-titled Conquest). Rinsch was best known at the time for 47 Ronin, a martial arts fantasy film starring Keanu Reeves that didn’t do too well at the box office. All the same, Netflix was hungry for original output for its platform, and so the company signed a deal worth around $44m for Rinsch’s concept, which began life as a series of six short films.
Work began on the series not long after, and court filings allege that, around March 2020, Rinsch demanded an additional $11m in financing. That $11m, the filing alleges, wasn’t used to make White Horse (or Conquest) – Rinsch is instead said to have spent it on a series of risky investments, including cryptocurrency, as well as luxury goods, including $2.4m “five Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari,” $652,000 on watches and clothing, and perhaps most bizarrely, $638,000 on “two mattresses”.
Read more: Conquest | Netflix spent $55m on a sci-fi series that will almost certainly never be released
Ultimately, Rinsch’s TV series was never finished, and Netflix eventually cancelled it. In an arbitration process which took place between Rinsch and Netflix in 2024, however, it was ruled that the filmmaker owed the company $12m – a ruling which eventually led to Rinsch’s arrest on Tuesday.
Rinsch has now been charged with wire fraud, money laundering and five counts of “monetary transaction in property derived from specified unlawful activity.”
In short, the allegations are serious, and Rinsch could be facing a long stretch in prison if he’s found guilty.
In a statement made at the time of Rinsch’s indictment – and published by TheWrap – FBI assistant director Leslie Backschies said, “Carl Rinsch allegedly stole more than $11 million from a prominent streaming platform to finance lavish purchases and personal investments instead of completing a promised television series. The FBI will continue to reel in any individual who seeks to defraud businesses.”
