A California man scammed foreign investors out of $14 million by falsely telling them their dough would be used to produce a Netflix film featuring “historical figures” such as Paul Bunyan and Davy Crockett, federal prosecutors said.
Adam Joiner, 41, of Manhattan Beach, surrendered to authorities Tuesday on charges of wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft after he allegedly used fake documents and forged signatures to dupe investment firms in South Korea and China into thinking that his film, “Legends,” had a Hollywood producer on board, and was being picked up by Netflix, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
Joiner billed the project as an “anachronistic mash-up of legendary and historical figures” from 19th-century America, including Crockett, Calamity Jane, Bunyan and John Henry, the feds claim.
Joiner, who ran a company called Dark Planet Pictures, even claimed that top Hollywood producer Don Murphy — known for big-budget flicks like “Natural Born Killers” and “Transformers” — had agreed to work on the film after getting an initial $10 million from investors, prosecutors allege.
In late 2015, Joiner allegedly met with a director at Korean Investment Partners and provided him a script for “Legends” that he claimed was written by his brother.
As the firm considered investing in the project, Joiner lied to company reps that Netflix had agreed to distribute the film, according to a criminal complaint.
That claim was backed up by a fake distribution agreement that looked as if it was signed by a Netflix executive, eventually getting the Korean firm to invest $8 million in the project and transfer half of those funds to Joiner’s production company, prosecutors said.
Joiner allegedly used the same fake distribution document to scam a Chinese investment firm, Star Century Pictures, out of $6 million.
Prosecutors said FBI agents contacted the Netflix exec who purportedly signed the distribution agreement, only to learn that he had never heard of Joiner or his project, according to an affidavit.
Murphy, meanwhile, was retained to produce the film and secure a distribution deal, but he terminated his arrangement with Joiner in mid-2017 when the producer realized no talent or director had been secured for “Legends,” the affidavit states.
Joiner allegedly told investors that he terminated the distribution deal with Netflix in late 2016 and lined up a new agreement with Amblin Partners, which also was not true, executives at both companies told authorities.
But the ruse was good enough to dupe the South Korean investors to send the second half of their $8 million investment to Joiner’s Dark Planet Pictures in early 2017, prosecutors claim.
Joiner allegedly gave the scammed investors a litany of excuses as to why the “Legends” project didn’t move forward, even providing a forged bank statement to prove that he could repay their funds.
But FBI agents found that more than $5 million of that money went to buy Joiner’s Manhattan Beach home — and another $4.3 million was transferred to a bank account that may be linked to another film in development linked to Joiner, according to prosecutors.
Joiner, whose IMDb profile lists him as a producer for the “Legends” project and a comedy called “Stock Car Willie,” faces up to 32 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
When reached by The Post, a Netflix spokesperson would not comment on the case.