{"id":40106,"date":"2025-12-04T21:22:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T21:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/a-ferrari-and-over-480-takeout-orders-fbi-details-spending-spree-of-netflix-director-in-11-million-fraud-case\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T21:22:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T21:22:34","slug":"a-ferrari-and-over-480-takeout-orders-fbi-details-spending-spree-of-netflix-director-in-11-million-fraud-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/a-ferrari-and-over-480-takeout-orders-fbi-details-spending-spree-of-netflix-director-in-11-million-fraud-case\/","title":{"rendered":"A Ferrari and over 480 takeout orders: FBI details spending spree of Netflix director in $11 million fraud case"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6931e65804d0f0a114f16e84?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Carl Rinsch trial\"\/><figcaption>Carl Rinsch is on trial in Manhattan federal court over criminal allegations that he defrauded Netflix and went on a spending spree with the $11 million earmarked for a TV show production.<\/p>\n<p>Lloyd Mitchell for BI<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Director Carl Rinsch is on trial for defrauding Netflix of $11 million.<\/li>\n<li>An FBI agent detailed spending on luxury cars and hundreds of orders on Postmates and Uber Eats.<\/li>\n<li>The money was supposed to go toward the production of &quot;White Horse,&quot; which was never finished.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In March of 2020, Netflix infused $11 million into a production company to complete the first season of &quot;White Horse,&quot; a futuristic sci-fi series it hoped to bring to its platform.<\/p>\n<p>Carl Rinsch \u2014 the director, writer, and showrunner of &quot;White Horse&quot; \u2014 never finished the 12 episodes he was supposed to deliver.<\/p>\n<p>But a short time after he got the cash, Rinsch spent millions of dollars on furniture, cars, credit card bills \u2014  and a whole lot of takeout.<\/p>\n<p>According to testimony at his criminal trial on Thursday,Rinsch spent a total of $9.14 million through a personal bank account with funds originally earmarked to finish &quot;White Horse,&quot; which had the production codename &quot;Conquest.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The spending included more than 480 food deliveries from Postmates and Uber Eats during a six-month span in 2022, according to a spreadsheet entered into evidence. The spreadsheet showed Rinsch sometimes making a dozen separate food purchases each day.<\/p>\n<p>The most expensive category, FBI agent Michael Naccarelli testified, was for furniture, for which Rinsch spent $3.36 million.<\/p>\n<p>Rinsch also spent $2.4 million on cars \u2014 including a Ferrari and Rolls-Royces \u2014 and $1.8 million on American Express bills, according to Naccarelli. He also spent money on hotels, jewelry, and art, Naccarelli said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Rinsch described the Ferrari as &quot;a birthday gift to myself&quot; in a 2021text message to his personal assistant, which was shown to jurors later Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys for Rinsch told jurors at his trial in Manhattan federal court that the &quot;White Horse&quot; debacle is a civil business dispute \u2014 not criminal financial fraud.<\/p>\n<p>They say Rinsch, who previously directed &quot;47 Ronin,&quot; starring Keanu Reeves, is a &quot;creative genius&quot; who was overwhelmed by the demands of directing, writing, and producing &quot;White Horse&quot; and left to flounder by the streaming company.<\/p>\n<p>Days after Netflix sent $11 million to a bank account for Rinsch&#039;s production company, he moved $10.5 million to a personal Wells Fargo bank account, according to Naccarelli and records entered into trial evidence.<\/p>\n<p>The director then moved portions of the funds to a Kraken cryptocurrency exchange account, as well as other bank accounts, before ultimately transferring $13.7 million to a personal Bank of America account.<\/p>\n<p>With his Kraken account, Rinsch purchased about a dozen different cryptocurrencies, including Dogecoin, Etherium, Bitcoin Cash, and the stablecoin Tether, trial records show.<\/p>\n<p>In April 2022, Rinsch&#039;s Dogecoin holdings were worth about $755,000, and his Etherium tokens about $939,000, according to Naccarelli.<\/p>\n<p>While a financial advisor previously testified in the trial that Rinsch&#039;s stock investments went badly, Naccarelli said the director&#039;s cryptocurrency investments were profitable.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The trades performed very well,&quot; Naccarelli said as Rinsch \u2014 wearing a three-piece black suit and a patterned pink tie and matching pocket square \u2014 nodded slightly.<\/p>\n<p>Allen Grove, an FBI agent who testified after Naccarelli, said Rinsch considered himself a major Dogecoin trader when they met in April 2023 regarding a dispute over one of Rinsch&#039;s furniture purchases in Paris.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Mr. Rinsch described to me that he became wealthy during the pandemic by investing in Dogecoin,&quot; Grove testified. &quot;He described himself to me as &#039;The Dogecoin Whale.&#039;&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Rinsch said in an earlier deposition, which was shown to jurors on Thursday, that his purchases of four Rolls-Royces were meant for the production of &quot;White Horse,&quot; and not for personal use. Netflix wrote off the production as a loss in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;That would be fraud otherwise,&quot; Rinsch said in the deposition.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carl Rinsch is on trial in Manhattan federal court over criminal allegations that he defrauded Netflix and went on a spending spree with the $11 million earmarked for a TV show production. Lloyd Mitchell for BI Director Carl Rinsch is on trial for defrauding Netflix of $11 million. An FBI agent detailed spending on luxury [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}