Hollywood's "$DOGE Day" Disaster: 47 Ronin Director Gets 30 Months for Cashing Netflix's $11M Into Rolls-Royces 🚗

Carl Erik Rinsch, the director behind the 2013 Keanu Reeves film "47 Ronin," was sentenced Monday to 30 months in federal prison for diverting $11 million earmarked for a Netflix sci-fi series into cryptocurrency trades and luxury purchases. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, sitting in Manhattan, also imposed three years of supervised release and ordered Rinsch to pay $11 million in restitution. "Carl Erik Rinsch promised to make a television show," said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. "Instead, he used $11 million meant for production as his personal casino and luxury fund."

Netflix had paid Rinsch's production company more than $44 million to produce a series originally titled "White Horse" and later retitled "Conquest." In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted production, Rinsch requested an additional $11 million to complete the show. Prosecutors said he transferred most of that money into a personal brokerage account and never delivered the series. Within weeks, court filings show, Rinsch lost $5.9 million on speculative options trades, including pandemic-era positions on a COVID drugmaker and bets on a broader market crash. He subsequently moved more than $4 million in remaining funds to crypto exchange Kraken and purchased Dogecoin ($DOGE).

The trade paid off handsomely: as the meme coin rallied, Rinsch cashed out nearly $27 million in May 2021, according to a 2023 New York Times report. In a message to a Kraken representative, he wrote, "Thank you and god bless crypto." The proceeds funded purchases documented by a forensic accountant retained by his ex-wife, including five Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari, a $388,000 Vacheron Constantin watch, and roughly $8.7 million in furniture, antiques and designer clothing. Rather than return the funds, Rinsch sued Netflix for more than $14 million he claimed the company still owed him; an arbitrator ruled against him.

A Manhattan jury convicted Rinsch in December on one count of wire fraud, one count of money laundering, and five counts of transacting with criminally derived property. He faced up to 90 years in prison, and prosecutors had sought a five-year term. Rakoff imposed a lighter sentence after the defense presented evidence of an untreated mental health condition, with family, friends, and former colleagues describing a marked change in his behavior beginning around 2019. Reeves, who served as a producer on the unfinished series, urged leniency in a letter to the court. Addressing the core conduct, Rakoff said "improper medication" may have "played a role," but he was unmoved on the question of culpability for the $11 million diversion to speculative trading and luxury assets.