Netflix Gets Fall Trial Start Against Director Who Allegedly Scammed $11M Out Of Streamer

Netflix may never see the more than $11 million the streamer & the feds say Carl Rinsch owes them, but they will see the director in court later this yea

In a hearing Thursday in federal court NYC Carl Rinsch entered a not guilty plea and Judge Jed S. Rakoff put a September 8, 2025 trial start date on the calendar. Indicted by the Department of Justice on March 18 for fraud, and “engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity,” Rinsch is out on a $100,000 bond that he posted earlier this month.

The director of the never completed and never to be seen android drama series White Horse/Conquest, the 47-year-old Rinsch could be incarcerated for the rest of his life if found guilty by a jury.

Netflix wrote off its entire $55 million investment in the series in late 2020, but were awarded $11.8 million in mid-2024 out of arbitration proceedings with the 47 Ronin filmmaker. Rinsch is due on the West Coast later this month for a debtor’s examination in LA Superior Court. Having spent millions on credit cards, lawyers, five Rolls-Royces and one Ferrari, luxury hotels, watches and antiques, Rinsch now claims to be totally broke. Netflix’s outside attorneys want a through inventory of his assets and belongings to see if they can squeeze any of the cash they are owned from the Rinsch stone.

Contacted this afternoon by Deadline, Netflix reps had no comment on the hearing in the Big Apple earlier Thursday.

Arrested in the City of Angels by the feds and cops on March 18, Rinsch is “charged with one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; one count of money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and five counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.

Coming off the flop of 2013’s 47 Ronin but armed with the friendship and backing of of Keanu Reeves, once prominent commercial director Rinsch found himself and the show then known as White Horse in the middle of a bidding war in 2018. Then Netflix exec Cindy Holland yanked the project out of the hands of Amazon with a $61 million deal. Any sunshine and rainbows that came out of that soon turned dark as Rinsch blew through millions and millions with nothing to show for it.

Essentially getting money for nothing ($44 million, to be exact) final-cut holding, Rinsch asked and received another $11 million from the company in 2020. The director, who may have some mental health issues according to court filings, said the funds were for various and pre-and post-production needs to complete the series. 

That never happened.