Hollywood director Carl Rinsch has been found guilty of what prosecutors are calling "fraud" but what his lawyers insist was simply "being a creative genius struggling with his benefactor, like Vincent van Gogh, but with better taste in mattresses."
Rinsch, best known for the box-office bomb "47 Ronin," convinced Netflix to give him $44 million for a sci-fi series called "White Horse." When he ran over budget, Netflix wired him another $11 million in March 2020 to finish the project. The show was never completed, but Rinsch's shopping spree certainly was.
Instead of filming a dystopian thriller, Rinsch transferred the $11 million into his brokerage account. He lost half on stock options, then somehow made it all back through cryptocurrency, proving that even terrible decision-making occasionally gets lucky.
Then came the creative expenses: five Rolls-Royces, one Ferrari, $652,000 on watches and clothes, and the pièce de résistance—$638,000 on two Swedish mattresses. Because nothing says "sci-fi production budget" quite like horsehair bedding that costs more than most people's houses.
Rinsch's defense attorney Daniel McGuinness argued that his client was "Vincent van Gogh with a Netflix deal," which is accurate if van Gogh had cut off his ear and then bought four more Rolls-Royces with the insurance money.
Rinsch blamed his behavior on being neurodivergent. "Whatever's going on there, I can tell you it's not drug-induced," he testified. That neurotype, prosecutors suggest, is called "embezzlement."
His lawyers tried the "luxury purchases are a red herring" defense, asking jurors not to be fooled by the cars and mattresses. Because when defending someone who spent production money on $638,000 in bedding, the strategy is to ask people to please ignore the $638,000 in bedding.
Throughout the ordeal, Rinsch kept telling Netflix the project was "awesome" and "game changing good," which was true if you consider changing the game from "making a TV show" to "personal luxury goods acquisition."
The irony is not lost on anyone that Netflix, famous for documentaries about scammers, produced its own in-house scam without even getting the documentary rights.