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Piquing the interest, we assume, of podcasters everywhere, a major fraud charge has been filed by the Department of Justice against 47 Ronin director Carl Erik Rinsch. Rinsch, who was supposed to be working on a scifi series for Netflix, was allegedly using funds supplied by the streamer for personal gain, all while claiming that money was funneling into the series. The only problem? The series does not exist.

Let's back up a bit here - it was all the way back in 2018 that Netflix tapped Carl Erik Rinsch to produce a series originally called White Horse, but then later renamed Conquest. According to FilmStories, the series was supposed to focus on a war between humans and something called the Organic Internet, a species of artificially intelligent android creatures. As far back as 2023, claims the story above, Netflix had sunk $55M into the project, which turned out to be a disaster and never got to filming, and was dealing with the fallout of Rinsch's "erratic" behavior during pre-production.

However, it was not until after the filming had collapsed that Rinsch allegedly committed the fraud for which he is being chagred. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news on March 18, describing the Justice Department's charge of "wire fraud, money laundering and multiple counts related to engaging in transactions stemming from illegal activity" against the 47 Ronin director. In particular, Rinsch sued Netflix for $11M with the claim that he would use it to complete the show, but ended up using the money for purchase luxury goods. 

(And if you're wondering how he got the money to sue Netflix, well, that was apparently paid for with cash that was supposed to go to the series as well.)

Matthew Podolsky, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, explains further:

"[Rinsch] orchestrated a scheme to steal millions by soliciting a large investment from a video streaming service, claiming that money would be used to finance a television show that he was creating [...] But that was fiction. Rinsch instead allegedly used the funds on personal expenses and investments, including highly speculative options and cryptocurrency trading."

To be perfectly honest, we're not sure that there will be a crop of 47 Ronin fans emotionally devastated by this news (the movie was a box office bomb and a critical failure). The people most hurt by Rinsch's team will be Netflix investors and, on a much more ground-level sense, the folks who may have been hired to work on the series and now are without pay. Still, the story itself is interesting enough, and it's entirely possible that those affected may be part of the inevitable documentary made about the fraud.

After all, those podcasters might get to it first, but they won't have streamer money to produce a series.

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