Hollywood director Carl Rinsch is off to the clink for 30 months after defrauding Netflix of $11 million it sent him to complete a sci-fi series. The Associated Press' Jennifer Peltz reports that he blew much of the cash on cryptocurrency schemes, fancy cars and other luxuries.
Rinsch, 48, best known for directing Keanu Reeves in 47 Ronin, was convicted in December of wire fraud and money laundering after prosecutors showed he diverted funds intended for Conquest into a personal account. He spent the money on five Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari, $652,000 in watches and clothes, and $638,000 on two mattresses (Hastens, if you're wondering). U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff ordered him to pay roughly $11 million in restitution and report to prison on Sept. 1. Prosecutors had sought five years; Rinsch's lawyers cited mental health struggles in seeking leniency, a factor Rakoff said didn't excuse the fraud.
Rinsch gambled much of the money in the cryptocurrency market before spending millions more on luxury purchases. …
"This process has forced me to confront things about my health, my judgment and my life," Rinsch said. He apologized for his behavior, acknowledged that "real harm was caused," and explained: "I failed to recognize the danger of the state I was in."
Reeves wrote a letter to the court describing an earlier attempt to get Rinsch mental health support.
"I am, of course, not a therapist or psychologist," Reeves wrote. "I write instead as an artistic peer of Carl's, and as a friend. In my opinion, Carl can self-sabotage by amplifying the scale, scope and landscape of what had been negotiated, accordingly placing himself and his counterparties at odds."
It's amazing how little oversight there was in the age of prestige television. He asked for $11m, so they wired him $11m! They spent a total of $55m on the show and it was never completed; the New York Times reports that it's unlikely to ever see the light of day.
A few months later, Mr. Friedlander and a Netflix business affairs executive, Rochelle Gerson, called Ms. Rosés. They wanted to know whether she could get access to the show's footage so they could figure out what still needed to be done to complete the first season. When Ms. Rosés told them that she didn't feel comfortable doing so without Mr. Rinsch's approval, Ms. Gerson worried that Mr. Rinsch might have an "explosive response" if Ms. Rosés broached the matter with him.
Ms. Gerson soon began receiving emails from Mr. Rinsch in which he claimed, among other things, to have found a way to map "the coronavirus signal emanating from within the earth."
Director sentenced to prison in $11M fraud case over unfinished Netflix show [AP]
