Keanu Reeves asks judge to give Netflix fraudster Carl Rinsch a light sentence

• Keanu Reeves supports a lenient sentence for Carl Rinsch, who defrauded Netflix of $11 million.
• Rinsch directed Reeves in “47 Ronin,” and the two remained friends after the movie flopped.
• Reeves, in a letter, told a judge that Rinsch tends to “self-sabotage.”

Reeves “was pleased simply as a friend and artist” to write a letter supporting Rinsch ahead of his sentencing hearing, his lawyer Matthew Rosengart told Business Insider.

Rinsch’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 29. His attorneys have asked for the judge to impose a sentence that does not include any prison time. Federal prosecutors are scheduled to file their own sentencing recommendation in June.

“Carl is deeply grateful to Mr. Reeves and to all the friends and family who stepped forward to paint a fuller picture of who he is beyond the facts of this case,” Rinsch’s attorney, Daniel McGuinness, told Business Insider. He said they offer a consistent account of Rinsch as “a remarkably talented man of strong character who confronted extraordinary challenges in the period leading up to these events.”

In addition to $11 million in restitution, Netflix asked that Rinsch be ordered to pay $3.4 million in legal fees for a related civil legal dispute between them, as well as an additional $500,448 for the streamer’s legal costs of helping prosecutors prepare the criminal case, according to Tuesday’s filing.

Rinsch’s lawyers say he shouldn’t be obligated to pay those legal fees. They wrote that “the devastating reputational and professional fallout” from the case has already deterred him from future wrongdoing.

“The conduct at issue in this case — obtaining $11 million from a global streaming company to deliver a creative project with no oversight — will certainly not reoccur,” they wrote.