Carl Rinsch, the Hollywood director who was convicted of defrauding Netflix of millions of dollars, was sentenced on Monday to 30 months in federal prison after the judge took into account testimony about Mr. Rinsch’s mental health issues.
The judge, Jed Rakoff of Federal District Court in Manhattan, also ordered Mr. Rinsch to repay Netflix the $11 million he was convicted in December of stealing from it, participate in an outpatient mental health treatment program and abstain from narcotics.
In arriving at his decision, which was half of the prosecution’s recommended sentence, Judge Rakoff appeared to be swayed by testimony from character witnesses who wrote letters on Mr. Rinsch’s behalf, including the actor Keanu Reeves.
“I believe circumstances arose where his mental health was compromised by misuse of medications and perhaps other issues, which amplified the acts of his self-sabotage and grandiosity,” Mr. Reeves wrote. Mr. Rinsch and Mr. Reeves met on the set of the 2013 samurai movie “47 Ronin” and became friends.
Mr. Rinsch, 48, secured funding from Netflix from 2018 to early 2020 to make a science fiction series called “Conquest.” But instead of putting all the money toward the production, he placed a chunk of it in a personal brokerage account and used it to trade securities.
Netflix canceled development for the show in early 2021 after Mr. Rinsch’s behavior turned erratic. When the company informed him of its decision, he went on a spending spree with the show’s remaining production money, speculating on cryptocurrency, living out of five-star hotels in California and Spain and buying five Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari.