Quote from Oladosun Joshua Segun on May 29, 2026, 7:50 PM

Keanu Reeves is advocating for a friend. Before his June 29 sentencing, the Matrix star wrote a letter of support for filmmaker Carl Rinsch, pleading with a court to shorten his prison sentence. In December, Rinsch was convicted of stealing $11 million from Netflix.

“I am writing in support of Carl Rinsch in connection with his upcoming sentencing. I do not know the details of this case,” Us Weekly claims that Reeves stated in a note. “But 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.”

The 61-year-old clarified that after directing Reeves in Rinsch's first feature picture, 47 Ronin, in 2013, the two became friends.

“I attended his wedding in Uruguay in 2014,” Reeves revealed. “Over the years I would periodically visit Carl and his wife at their Los Angeles home and catch up on and discuss life and art.”

The John Wick actor also revealed that Rinsch had shown him a preliminary version of White Horse, the science fiction series he was paid to develop but never completed.

“In my opinion, Carl is an exceptional artist, and White Horse, in the form in which I saw it, was a superb and visionary work of art, although unfinished,” Reeves penned. “I am, of course, not a therapist or psychologist. I write instead as an artistic peer of Carl’s, and as a friend.”

He continued, “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.”

In the end, Reeves requested "leniency" for Rinsch from the judge.

As stated to a release issued from the Southern District of New York's U.S. Attorney's Office, the director was detained in March 2025 and accused of “engaging in a scheme to defraud a subscription video on-demand streaming service,” which involved laundering the money he had received to produce White Horse.

The U.S. lawyer claims that Rinsch requested money from Netflix between 2019 and 2020 in order to finish White Horse, but that money was not used for the TV show.

The report claims that Rinsch spent the money on cryptocurrency and "personal expenses and luxury items," such as more than $1.7 million in credit card bills, $395,000 for hotel stays, more than $3.7 million on furniture and antiques, and more than $2.4 million on the acquisition of five Rolls-Royces and one Ferrari.

In December, Rinsch was found guilty of one count of money laundering and one count of wire fraud, each of which carry an aggregate 20-year prison sentence. As per Us Weekly, he was also found guilty of “five counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity,” which carries a potential term of ten years in jail.

Benjamin Zeman, Rinsch's lawyer, expressed his opinions about the verdict after it was rendered in December.

“I think the verdict was wrong and I fear that this could set a dangerous precedent for artists who become embroiled in contractual and creative disputes with their benefactors,” according to Variety, he remarked. “in this case one of the largest media companies in the world, finding themselves indicted by the federal government for fraud.”