Hollywood director arrested on charges of swindling $11 million from Netflix to invest in stocks and crypto

Los Angeles writer and director Carl Erik Rinsch, perhaps best known for directing the Keanu Reeves-starring film 47 Ronin, was arrested on Tuesday in West Hollywood and charged with fraud and money laundering related to an $11 million television series investment.

Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Matthew Podolsky and Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's New York Field Office Leslie Backschies announced the unsealing of the seven-count indictment charging Rinsch with defrauding a subscription video-on-demand streaming service — widely reported by AP News and other outlets to be Netflix — in connection with a planned science fiction show titled "White Horse" that never aired.

According to the indictment , Rinsch reached an agreement with a streaming company in 2018 that would pay him for existing episodes of White Horse and fund the completion of the series, totaling $44 million. However, between late 2019 and early 2020, Rinsch allegedly demanded another $11 million to finish the show, which was agreed to and subsequently transferred to a company Rinsch controlled.

Filmmaker allegedly gambled TV funds on stocks, crypto

However, Rinsch did not use those funds to complete White Horse, the indictment alleges, instead transferring the $11 million through various accounts before consolidating them in a personal brokerage account. Rinsch then allegedly used the money to speculate on securities and cryptocurrencies — losing more than half of the funds in an unsuccessful trading period of less than two months. He also allegedly funded personal expenses, including $1.79 million on credit card bills, $1.1 million on legal fees to sue the streaming company for even more money, $2.4 million on five Rolls-Royces and one Ferrari, as well as other luxury items.

"As alleged, Carl Erik Rinsch orchestrated a scheme to steal millions by soliciting a large investment from a video streaming service, claiming that money would be used to finance a television show that he was creating. But that was fiction," Podolsky said in a statement. "Rinsch instead allegedly used the funds on personal expenses and investments, including highly speculative options and cryptocurrency trading.”

After losing most of the funds, Rinsch again allegedly turned to cryptocurrency trading — which eventually proved profitable, according to the indictment. A previous report from The New York Times claimed that Rinsch turned Dogecoin holdings valued at $4 million into $27 million by May 2021. He allegedly used Kraken to buy crypto via transfers from Schwab Bank, the outlet said.

Specifically, Rinsch, 47, faces one count of wire fraud, punishable by up to 20 years in prison; one count of money laundering, which also carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison; and five counts of engaging in monetary transactions involving property derived from unlawful activity, each carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Rinsch had his initial hearing in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles on Tuesday, AP News reported. U.S. Magistrate Judge Pedro V. Castillo ordered Rinsch's release after he agreed to post a $100,000 bond to ensure his appearance in court in New York, where the indictment was filed. A New York court date has not yet been set.