Hollywood director Carl Rinsch misappropriated Netflix investments to speculate in stocks and currencies. He once made $27 million in Dogecoin and now faces a 90-year sentence.
Hollywood director Carl Lynch, who directed Keanu Reeves' "47 Ronin", misappropriated US$11 million of Netflix's production fees to speculate in stocks. After betting US$4 million on Dogecoin and making a huge profit of US$27 million, he spent all the money on Rolls-Royce, Ferrari and million-dollar mattresses. On December 11, he was finally found guilty of fraud and money laundering in a New York federal court and could be sentenced to up to 90 years in prison.
(Preliminary summary: Pump.fun was accused of gambling organized crime! Solana Labs and foundation executives were named as defendants, and Jito, who engaged in MEV, was not spared)
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Have directed the 2013 energyedtop "Ronin" starring Keanu Reeves 47” Hollywood director Carl Rinsch was convicted by a jury of multiple felonies in Manhattan Federal Court on December 11 for misappropriating Netflix funds to speculate in stocks and cryptocurrencies. Prosecutors allege that almost all of the $11 million in production fees he received from Netflix flowed into his personal account and was used in high-risk investments rather than filming the series.
The jury found Lynch guilty of one count of wire fraud, one count of money laundering, and five counts of illegal financial transactions, which carries a maximum sentence of 90 years in prison. Formal sentencing will be announced on April 17, 2026.
Once made a fortune of US$27 million by investing in Dogecoin
Prosecutors pointed out that the US$11 million was originally an additional production fee paid by Netflix to Lynch from 2020 to 2021 for Lynch’s science fiction series “White Horse” (later renamed “Conquest”). Netflix had previously invested $44 million, but Lynch requested additional funding citing "the need to complete post-production."
However, after receiving the payment, Lynch quickly transferred the money to his personal brokerage account, first losing about US$5.5 million in the stock market, and then betting all the remaining US$4 million on cryptocurrency, the largest of which was Dogecoin.
According to a 2023 New York Times investigation, Lynch liquidated his position in Dogecoin at its highest point in May 2021, and his US$4 million soared to approximately US$27 million, a profit of nearly 7 times. However, he did not use this huge profit to fill Netflix's funds. Instead, he spent wildly: buying 5 Rolls-Royces and 1 Ferrari, totaling 2.4 million US dollars; 3.8 million US dollars in high-end furniture and antiques, including a set of handmade mattresses and bedding worth nearly 1 million US dollars; 650,000 US dollars in luxury watches; credit card bills of at least 1.7 million US dollars; long-term stays in five-star hotels in California and Spain, and paying for divorce-related expenses.
In the end, not a single finished product of the series was delivered, and Netflix recognized a total loss of $55 million in investment.
Lynch claimed innocence
Lynch maintained his innocence in court, emphasizing that the $11 million was "compensation for the previous self-funded development phase" and was purely a contract dispute with Netflix, not fraud. His defense lawyer Benjamin Zeman criticized the verdict as "setting a dangerous precedent for disputes between creators and large platforms" and said Lynch was in a "mental disorder" due to the stress of the epidemic and the influence of prescription drugs.
The case quickly aroused heated discussion on the Internet. The crypto community paid close attention to the incident of "using Netflix money to speculate in Dogecoin and getting rich but went to jail." Some netizens left a message:
"Lynch used Netflix money to buy Dogecoin and earned 27 million, and then spent it all on luxury cars and mattresses - this is the real 'ronin'."
