Netflix Fraud Fallout: 47 Ronin Director Carl Rinsch Reportedly Found Guilty in $11 Million Case, Could Face Decades in Prison

Well, this escalated fast. Carl Rinsch, the 47 Ronin director who convinced Netflix to bankroll his sci-fi series and then never finished it, has been found guilty of defrauding the streamer out of $11 million. The case moved quickly, and the details are a ride.

The quick version

• Rinsch was found guilty in Manhattan federal court after a trial that lasted less than two weeks.
• Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said he carried out a scheme to defraud, including wire fraud and money laundering.
• He faces a statutory maximum of up to 90 years in prison, though Judge Jed Rakoff is widely expected to go lighter at sentencing.

What Netflix paid for (and what they got)

Netflix hired Rinsch to develop a sci-fi series about a scientist who creates a humanlike species that turns on its makers. The company poured roughly $55 million into the project. Then Rinsch asked for another $11 million. That extra cash, prosecutors said, went straight into his personal accounts, followed by a spending spree. The show was never completed.

Eventually, Netflix pulled the plug and wrote the whole thing off. Their statement at the time was blunt:

'After a lot of time and effort, it became clear that Mr. Rinsch was never going to complete the project he agreed to make, and so we wrote the project off.'

How it got even weirder

Instead of this ending there, Rinsch sued Netflix for more than $14 million, saying he was contractually obligated to pursue that claim. Around that same stretch, he also made some head-scratching assertions — including that he had figured out how to map a coronavirus-related signal supposedly coming from within the earth and that he could predict lightning strikes.

In a later arbitration hearing, he said his behavior stemmed from being on the autism spectrum, stressing that he was not on drugs or mentally ill and describing it as a different neurotype most people might not understand.

The verdict and what comes next

The fraud and money laundering trial wrapped with a guilty verdict in under two weeks. Prosecutors had accused Rinsch of knowingly devising a plan to obtain money and property from Netflix through false pretenses — and the court agreed. On paper, the combined charges carry a potential sentence of up to 90 years, but legal watchers expect Judge Jed Rakoff to impose something less severe.

Bottom line: Netflix sunk $55 million into a series that never materialized, Rinsch pulled another $11 million into his own accounts, and now he is staring down a very long time in federal prison. Sentencing is still to come.