A Manhattan federal jury has convicted director Carl Erik Rinsch of defrauding Netflix out of $11 million earmarked for an ambitious science-fiction series, ending a long-running dispute over a show that never reached the screen and leaving the filmmaker facing a possible decades-long prison term.
Jurors found the 47 Ronin director guilty on seven counts, including wire fraud, money laundering and five counts related to unlawful monetary transactions. Prosecutors said the additional $11 million Netflix wired in 2020 for the sci-fi project White Horse was quickly diverted into speculative stock and cryptocurrency trades and a luxury spending spree that included Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari and close to $1 million in mattresses and bedding.
According to court filings and the original indictment, Netflix had already paid about $44 million for White Horse under a multi-year agreement before agreeing to the extra payment in March 2020. Investigators said Rinsch routed that money through several accounts into a personal brokerage, lost over half on options within weeks, then shifted remaining funds into digital assets before moving trading profits into his own bank account.
The case drew attention for the level of personal spending described at trial. Prosecutors detailed purchases that included five Rolls-Royces, one Ferrari, high-end furniture and antiques, multiple Hästens beds costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, nearly $300,000 on luxury linens, extended stays at the Four Seasons and other rentals, and seven-figure credit card payments. Messages shown to jurors captured Rinsch urging aides to accelerate luxury shopping, even comparing himself to a character racing to burn through a windfall.
Rinsch’s legal team framed the case as an artistic and contractual dispute that spilled into criminal court. His attorney Benjamin Zeman called the verdict “a dangerous precedent for artists who become embroiled in contractual and creative disputes with their benefactors,” while Rinsch testified that he viewed most of the $11 million as reimbursement and compensation after using personal funds to prop up an overbudget production.
Long before the criminal charges, Netflix and Rinsch had already battled in civil proceedings. After the streamer severed ties and shelved White Horse, the director pursued arbitration claiming the company owed him at least $14 million in damages; an arbitrator instead ordered him to repay nearly $12 million and turned control of the footage over to Netflix, a decision later upheld in court.
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White Horse, sometimes referred to by its production title Conquest, had been pitched as a sprawling sci-fi saga with franchise potential, and earlier reporting detailed how Rinsch at one point turned a multimillion-dollar Dogecoin bet into a large profit before spending that windfall on more luxury goods. With no finished episodes delivered and sentencing scheduled for April 2026, the case has become a cautionary tale for streamers and creators watching where creative risk ends and financial crime begins.
