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Carl Rinsch is a director with one feature film credit, the 2013 box office and critical bomb 47 Ronin. He’s also done a music video for Swedish House Mafia, some commercials, and worked for a time at Ridley Scott’s production company. I’d call that a promising resume for someone still making their way up in Hollywood. Yet somehow, in 2018 Rinsch had every major studio and streamer wooing him to accept their millions for Conquest, a sci-fi series he was pitching. Netflix won, laying out $44 million to fund the seven remaining episodes Rinsch had planned. Filming began in 2019 and Rinsch blew through the budget and all production deadlines. By late 2019/early 2020, Rinsch said he’d only completed one episode and needed more money to continue, and Netflix reluctantly gave him another $11 million. Cut to this week, where Rinsch was indicted and charged with fraud and money laundering for taking Netflix’s $11 million and spending it on Rolls Royces and, believe it or not, mattresses, among other things
According to the court records, Rinsch pitched the show … in January 2018 to Netflix executives including Cindy Holland, who was then the VP in charge of original content, and who left the company in 2020. … Netflix agreed to invest $44 million to acquire the series and produce the first season. A schedule was drawn up that called for several months of filming in Kenya, Mexico, Romania, Berlin, Hungary and Uruguay in 2019.
…Rinsch then set about expanding the script, and demanded an additional $11 million to complete the first season, according to the ruling. Hoping to salvage the project, Netflix agreed to pay the money in March 2020, the ruling states.
The COVID-19 pandemic promptly intervened, shutting down production worldwide. In June 2020, Rinsch met at a hotel with Holland and another Netflix executive to give an update.
“Rinsch spent a large portion of the meeting sharing various theories he had been developing about COVID, the universe, interconnectivity, genders, God, higher callings and reproduction,” the ruling states. “He did not focus on ‘Conquest.’”
Unsettled, the Netflix executives concluded he did not intend to finish the show. … That fall, Netflix decided to write off the cost of the series.
According to the indictment, Rinsch had quickly transferred most of the $11 million to his brokerage account, where he promptly lost about half of it by speculating on investments such as call options on a biopharmaceutical company and put options on an S&P 500 ETF. At the time he was still reassuring Netflix that the show was “awesome and moving forward really well,” the indictment states.
According to the indictment, he used the remaining funds to invest in cryptocurrency in early 2021, which resulted in a windfall. The arbitration ruling states that Rinsch spent lavishly on various items in late 2021, claiming the purchases were needed for the second season of the show, which Netflix had not ordered. He was also worried that the IRS would tax him on the money if it was not spent, the ruling states.
The purchases included $638,000 on luxury mattresses; $295,000 on luxury bedding and linens; $180,000 on kitchen appliances; $5.4 million on furniture; and $1.68 million on two Rolls Royces, the arbitrator’s ruling states. According to the indictment, he bought five Rolls Royces and one Ferrari for $2.4 million. He also paid his rent on his home in Spain, and legal bills to pursue Netflix for breach of contract in arbitration.
The grand jury indictment, unsealed Tuesday, accuses Rinsch of wire fraud, money laundering and five counts of using illicit funds in a transaction. Rinsch faces the potential of many years in prison, and the government is also seeking to forfeit his assets.
The New York Times had an article about this case in 2023 that fills in a lot about Rinsch — things like, he grew up in California, but liked to tell people he grew up in Africa and that his father was a spy (paging Hilaria Baldwin). Here’s what I’m dying to know: how many luxury mattresses does $638,000 buy? And furthermore, what did Rinsch DO with these mattresses? Are they all for him, and if so how many homes does he have, or did he make one huge square by laying them all out up against each other? Or wait, was something stuffed in these mattresses?! These are the life mysteries that haunt my psyche, folks.
Also, I really can’t let this one go without comment: “A schedule was drawn up that called for several months of filming in Kenya, Mexico, Romania, Berlin, Hungary and Uruguay in 2019.” Why all country names except for Germany? Unless there’s a country called Berlin I’m unaware of…