His Netflix movie proposal was a scam — now California man heads to prison, feds say
A California man was sentenced to over 8 years in prison for embarking on a multimillion dollar scam in which he claimed money from investors would be used to produce a feature film for Netflix, federal prosecutors said.
Adam Joiner, 43, of Manhattan Beach, used fake documents and forged signatures to coax foreign investment firms in South Korea and China to give him millions of dollars for a movie project, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, said in a news release. He pitched an idea for a movie called “Legends,” which would supposedly portray “American folklore icons” like Paul Bunyan and John Henry, prosecutors said.
“It was a legitimate project; there was a script, but things took a different turn,” Joiner’s attorney, John Hanusz, told The Daily Breeze.
Court documents said Joiner also told investors that director Guillermo del Toro had verbally agreed to be a part of the project. However, no actors or directors had ever signed onto the project.
Prosecutors said in a sentencing memo that Joiner’s “representations proved to be as fictitious as the legendary figures his film was supposed to depict,” according to the release.
In 2016, Joiner operated a company called Dark Planet Pictures, LLC and defrauded the Korea Investment Global Contents Fund, whose assets are managed by Korean Investment Partners Co. Ltd. The management company lost $8 million because of Joiner’s scheme, according to an affidavit that accompanied a criminal complaint filed against Joiner.
Joiner also defrauded Chinese investment firm Star Century Pictures Co. Ltd. and its affiliate PGA Yungpark Capital Ltd. Those entities invested $6 million into Joiner’s nonexistent film, according to the affidavit. .
Joiner told the companies that Netflix had agreed to distribute “Legends,” using a fake distribution agreement with a forged signature of a Netflix executive. He later falsely told investors that he terminated the agreement with Netflix but secured another agreement with a different entertainment company, Amblin Partners, the affidavit said.
At least $5.2 million of investors’ money was used to pay for Joiner’s home in Manhattan Beach, and $4.3 million was transferred to one of Joiner’s bank accounts that “may be linked to developing an unrelated film,” the release said.
Prosecutors said in the sentencing memo that Joiner “continued to dissemble, concocting tales of contract negotiations with director Guillermo del Toro and a new distribution agreement with Amblin Partners in an effort to lull his victims into complacency,” all while continuing to misuse the money, according to the release.
“He had entered into no such distribution agreements and had done little to no work in producing a film using the investment funds he was provided,” FBI agent Nathan Cherney wrote in the affidavit. “Instead, he spent much of the money on himself.”
Joiner ultimately sold the Manhattan Beach residence in October 2019, after signing his plea agreement but before entering his guilty plea. Before selling the house, he “fraudulently removed the liens his victims had placed on the house” by filing documents with fake signatures from the victims’ attorneys, prosecutors said. Because of this, Joiner entered a guilty plea to wire fraud in December 2019.
“Adam is very sorry for his crimes, and he expressed his remorse very clearly,” Hanusz told McClatchy News. “I believe the court saw that.”
Joiner was sentenced by a judge to pay $14 million in restitution to the victims. Joiner will also spend 97 months in prison, or about eight years, the release said.
The government has seized over $5.5 million from Joiner’s accounts and returned $4 million to the Korea Investment Global Contents Fund, prosecutors said.
This story was originally published November 12, 2021 at 6:08 PM with the headline "His Netflix movie proposal was a scam — now California man heads to prison, feds say."