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Former New York City prosecutor Linda Fairstein is suing Netflix and director Ava DuVernay, accusing the production studio and filmmaker of defaming her in a movie based on the Central Park Five case, which sent five black and Latino teenagers to prison for a crime they didn't commit.
The defamation suit filed in federal court Wednesday in Fort Meyers, Fla., alleges that the four-part series “When They See Us” wrongfully portrayed Fairstein as a "racist, unethical villain" and gave the impression that she was in charge of the investigation and shaped the prosecution's case.
“In truth, and as detailed in the lawsuit, Ms. Fairstein was responsible for neither aspect of the case,” Fairstein's lawyer, Andrew Miltenberg, wrote in the suit.
The famous case drew widespread criticism that the convictions of the five teenagers for a violent attack on a Central Park jogger were racially motivated.
The convictions were later overturned after nearly 13 years when a convicted murderer and serial rapist, Matias Reyes, confessed to committing the crime alone and DNA evidence linked him to it.
Fairstein, who was the top sex crimes prosecutor in Manhattan at the time of the case, oversaw the interrogation of the teens but she was not in charge of trying the case.
After the show debuted on Netflix in 2019, Fairstein, who was a best-selling crime author, says she was dropped by her publisher and forced to resign from her post on several other boards.
Netflix called Fairstein’s lawsuit “frivolous" and said in a statement to the Associated Press. “We intend to vigorously defend ‘When They See Us’ and Ava DuVernay and Attica Locke, the incredible team behind the series."
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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