Keanu Reeves admits he does “not know the details” of Carl Rinsch‘s case and the millions of dollars the filmmaker has been found guilty of scamming from Netflix, but the John Wick star wants a federal judge to cut his 47 Ronin director some slack.
“Based upon what I do know about Carl, I did want to take the opportunity to write on his behalf, in the hope that his sentence might be tempered with measures of leniency and mercy as well as justice,” Reeves wrote in a May 1 letter submitted this week by Rinsch’s legal team ahead of his June 29 sentencing.
Found guilty last December in his fraud and money-laundering trial after just a few hours of deliberation by a New York City jury, Rinsch is facing a decade or more behind bars under federal sentencing guidelines. The defense is hoping that when Rinsch’s challenges, tattered career and the fact that this is a first offense are taken into consideration, the director, “who never saw the inside of a jail cell before this case,” will be spared prison.
“A non-incarceratory sentence would be sufficient but not greater than necessary to achieve the ends of justice,” Risnsch’s attorneys Daniel A. McGuinness and Ben Zeman wrote. They also acknowledge Rinsch needs to pay back the Ted Sarandos– and Greg Peters-run streamer for the $11 million that was supposed to go to the now abandoned android drama series White Horse/Conquest, but balk at what they consider excessive legal fees.
Carl Rinsch
Getty
Rinsch’s mental health issues were never in the fore of his defense during last year’s two-week trial before Judge Jed Rakoff. However, I hear from sources close to the case that the vast amount of redactions in the 91-page sentencing submission indicate that’s where the defense will go at next month’s sentencing to keep Rinsch out of prison at all costs.
To that, Reeves, who vouched for Rinsch to some degree and funded some of his initial White Horse/Conquest work before Netflix exec Cindy Holland swooped in to sign the relatively inexperienced and unsuccessful filmmaker (47 Ronin bombed) in 2018, made a judgment of his own in his letter to the judge.
“I am, of course, not a therapist or psychologist,” the Matrix star said. “I write instead as an artistic peer of Carl’s, and as a friend. In my opinion, Carl can self-sabotage by amplifying the scale, scope and landscape of what had been negotiated, accordingly placing himself and his counterparties at odds,” Reeves states.
“I do not intend to share this as an excuse or diminishment of what he has been found to have done, but offer this solely as perhaps an insight into why.”
It should be noted the next few lines of Reeves’ two-page submission are \blacked out. In fact, throughout the defense sentencing submission, there are entire pages redacted, indicating it was Rinsch’s defense team that wanted the information withheld from public view, not individuals.
In addition to the letter from Reeves, the actor’s lawyer Matthew Rosengart told Deadline today: “Mr. Reeves was not involved in the underlying trial and did not testify but, as his letter reflects, was pleased simply as a friend and artist to offer his support to Mr. Rinsch in connection with his forthcoming sentencing.”
With little to show for it, Rinsch burned through $44 million of highflying Netflix’s money in the years after inking his big-budget deal with the streamer. Holding final-cut power and hence most of the cards, Rinsch then insisted on another $11 million from the company in 2020 for what he termed as various and pre-and post-production needs to complete White Horse/Conquest. By 2021, with Holland out and nothing but a few teaser clips, Netflix pulled the plug on the series, then wrote off over $55 million in costs. In 2024, Netflix won a still unpaid $12 million arbitration ruling against Rinsch after the filmmaker claimed the company actually owed him $14 million.
Prosecutors in U.S. Attorney’s office of the Southern District of New York are expected to submit their own sentencing suggestion to Judge Rakoff by June 16 … and they likely are going to want Rinsch to see the inside of a prison cell.