Director Carl Erik Rinsch has been charged with accusation of fraud and money laundering due to alleged $ 11 million from Netflix and spends on luxury cars, antique furniture and mattresses.
Rinsch demanded the money to finish “White Horse”, a science fiction -TV series that has never been completed, according to to the indictment. Instead, he would have used the money to make ‘extremely risky investments’ to pay for stay in the four seasons and for other lush purchases, and to hire lawyers to sue Netflix.
Rinsch, 47, was arrested on Tuesday in West Hollywood, according to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the southern district of New York.
Netflix refused to comment.
The allegations were first reported in one New York Times Story in November 2023. They are also set out in a long arbitration statementwhich was made public last August. The arbitrator ordered Rinsch to repay $ 11.8 million, and a judge of the Superior Court in Los Angeles maintained the prize in November.
According to the court reports, Rinsch also took the show also known as “Conquest”-in January 2018 to Netflix executives, including Cindy Holland, who was then the VP responsible for the original content, and who left the company in 2020. With investments by Keanu Reeves-De actor who had his mentor already had six short episodes and a three-minute trailer.
Netflix agreed to invest $ 44 million to acquire the series and produce the first season. A schedule was drawn up in 2019 that films for a few months in Kenya, Mexico, Romania, Berlin, Hungary and Uruguay.
Rinsch started photographing in Brazil and quickly passed the budget, according to the court reports. Hoewel hij had beloofd om nog eens zeven afleveringen te leveren, volgens de uitspraak van de arbiter, vertelde hij Netflix dat hij slechts een enkele aflevering zou kunnen voltooien met het geld dat Netflix had verstrekt.
After the production was briefly closed in Hungary, Netflix agreed to promote extra money. The production stopped in December 2019, with a lot of work. Rinsch then started to expand the script and demanded an extra $ 11 million to complete the first season, according to the statement. In the hope of saving the project, Netflix agreed to pay the money in March 2020, the ruling states.
De Covid-19-pandemie kwam onmiddellijk tussenbeide en sluit de productie wereldwijd af. In June 2020, Rinsch met in a hotel with Holland and another Netflix director to give an update.
“Rinsch spent a large part of the meeting sharing different theories he had developed about Covid, the universe, interconnectivity, genera, god, higher calls and reproduction,” says the prevailing reigning. “He did not focus on ‘conquest’.”
Unless, the Netflix managers concluded that he did not intend to finish the show. The main actor also stopped, with reference to the instability of production. That fall, Netflix decided to write off the cost of the series.
According to the indictment, Rinsch quickly transferred most of the $ 11 million to his Brokerage account, where he immediately lost about half by speculating about investments such as call options in a biopharmaceutical company and options on an S&P 500 ETF. The moment he was still reassuring that the show “was great and really good,” says the indictment.
According to the indictment, he used the remaining funds to invest in Cryptocurrency in early 2021, which resulted in a windfall. The arbitration statement states that at the end of 2021 Rinsch richly spent on various items and claimed that the purchases were needed for the second season of the show, which Netflix had not ordered. He was also afraid that the IRS would burden him on the money if it would not be spent, says the ruling.
The purchases include $ 638,000 on luxury mattresses; $ 295,000 on luxury bedding and bedding; $ 180,000 on kitchen appliances; $ 5.4 million on furniture; And $ 1.68 million out of two Rolls Royces, says the arbitrator’s statement. According to the indictment, he bought five Rolls Royces and one Ferrari for $ 2.4 million. He also paid his rent on his house in Spain, and legal accounts to pursue Netflix for breach of contract in arbitration.
The Grand Jury -Affairs, who is the declining on Tuesday, accuses Rinsch of Wire Fraud, money laundering and five counts of the use of illegal funds in a transaction. Rinsch is confronted with the potential of many years in prison and the government is also trying to lose his assets.
Rinsch submitted a petition to cancel the ruling of the arbitrator in August and with the argument that the arbitrator had misinterpreted the contract as 13 episodes. The judge enforced the decision of the arbitrator.