Director Carl Rinsch is facing over a decade in prison. John Sciulli It’s the day of reckoning for director Carl Rinsch.
On Monday, US District Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York will sentence Rinsch after he was found guilty in December 2025 of wire fraud and money laundering.
A federal jury in Manhattan found Rinsch guilty of taking $11 million in production funds from Netflix that was originally meant for a sci-fi series called “White Horse,” which he had sold to the streamer that paid him for the show between 2018 and 2020.
It was determined that Rinsch diverted those funds into a personal account which he then spent on speculative crypto trading, and what can only be deemed a cartoonish personal spending spree that includes several Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari, over $600K on luxury watches and millions more on furniture and antiques.
Rinsch never delivered a completed show, nor did he return the money to Netflix.
Throughout its history, Hollywood has seen plenty of grifters and hucksters roll through town — many of whom got away with it — but the sheer brazenness of Rinsch’s behavior startled the industry because it happened in the post #MeToo era when corporate consolidation and shifts to streaming had seemingly stamped out that kind of overtly unscrupulous behavior by prima donna creatives.
Keanu Reeves, who worked with Rinsch on the 2013 film “47 Ronin,” wrote a letter of support ahead of the director’s sentencing, stating: “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.”
“The Matrix” star continued: “I do not intend to share this as a diminishment of what he has been found to have done, but offer this solely as perhaps an insight into why… I hope you are able to find leniency for this man. To the extent you deem appropriate, I believe such leniency would be a healing act to go along with the punishment he will live with.”
Rinsch faces up to 121 months in prison, according to sentencing guidelines, but it’s clear he will be going to prison for several years. (A knowledgeable legal source said anything under five would be a win.)
It’s here that I should share that Rinsch and I went to high school together and while we weren’t close friends, we were (briefly) teammates, and I did run into him socially around LA over the past few decades.
In reporting on the saga surrounding Rinsch, it’s not hard to find people who have absolutely zero sympathy — a remarkably privileged man who attended Harvard Westlake, Brown and NYU. It would be impossible to defend his actions based upon what we know, but as a former classmate I’m trying to summon some grace for a sad and tragic story.
