Florida
Two officers sue Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, claiming details in ‘The Rip’ are too real
MIAMI (AP) — Two South Florida police officers claim Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s recent action thriller “The Rip” used too many real-life details in its fictionalized narrative, causing harm to the officers’ personal and professional reputations, according to a defamation lawsuit.
Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana, sergeants in the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, filed the lawsuit in Miami federal court earlier this month against Artists Equity, a film production company owned by Affleck and Damon. Court filings don’t say how much the officers are suing for, but the civil complaint says they’re seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney fees, as well as a public retraction and correction.
“The Rip” features Affleck and Damon as South Florida police officers who find millions of dollars inside a house. Parts of the movie were inspired by a real 2016 case, where police found over $21 million linked to a suspected marijuana trafficker in a Miami Lakes home.
Affleck and Damon have said while promoting the film that the story is loosely based on accounts from Miami-Dade Police Capt. Chris Casiano, who served as a technical advisor on the film. Damon told The Associated Press during a January interview that he and Affleck spent time with Casiano and other narcotics officers in preparation for the film.
“We really wanted to kind of understand what those dynamics were like,” Damon said. “I mean, these units are very tight because they’re really putting their lives in each other’s hands, and they’re doing something that’s very dangerous.”
An attorney for Artists Equity declined to comment when reached Monday by the AP. But in a March 19 response to the plaintiffs’ demand letter, Leita Walker, an attorney for Artists Equity, wrote that the film does not purport to tell the true story of that incident or portray real people, which had been stated by a disclaimer in the film’s credits.
Although Smith and Santana aren’t named in the film and weren’t involved in its production, the lawsuit claims that Santana was serving as the lead detective assigned to the real case, and Smith was the sergeant who supervised the investigative team. The film’s inclusion of real details about the case gives the impression that the characters are based on the plaintiffs, the suit said.
This, the lawsuit claims, has given friends, family members and colleagues the impression that the plaintiffs committed the criminal acts that appear in the film, which include (SPOILER ALERT) conspiring to steal seized drug money, murdering a supervising officer, communicating with cartel members, committing arson in a residential neighborhood, endangering the lives of civilians, repeatedly violating core law-enforcement protocols and executing a federal agent rather than making an arrest.
Walker wrote in March that the plaintiffs haven’t even identified which particular character is supposed to be based on Smith or Santana, so even if “The Rip” was actually about a real-life narcotics team, there’s no way to connect any of the characters to the plaintiffs.
“The Rip,” directed by Joe Carnahan, debuted in January on Netflix. It’s currently rated 78% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
New York
Appeals court spares President Trump from paying $83 million defamation award, for now
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump won’t have to pay an $83 million defamation award to a longtime advice columnist until the U.S. Supreme Court gets a chance to review the case or reject an appeal, according to a court entry Tuesday.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to a request by one of Trump’s lawyers that it let the president delay the payment to E. Jean Carroll, though it required that Trump post a $7.4 million bond to cover any additional interest costs, a request Carroll’s attorney had made.
The appeals court late last month refused Trump’s request for a rare meeting of the full 2nd Circuit to hear an appeal of a three-judge panel’s affirmance of the January 2024 verdict.
Afterward, Trump attorney Justin D. Smith asked the 2nd Circuit to stay the effect of its decision upholding the award so that Trump would not be forced to pay the judgment before the high court has a chance to consider an appeal.
Smith said last week there was a “fair prospect” that the Supreme Court will find in favor of Trump, who has called Carroll’s claims first made publicly in 2019 that she was sexually attacked by Trump in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in spring 1996 a “made up scam.”
The $83 million award to Carroll, 82, came from a jury that briefly heard Trump testify and observed his animated behavior for several days.
In upholding the verdict, a 2nd Circuit panel wrote last September that Trump continued his attacks against Carroll for at least five years, making them “more extreme and frequent as the trial approached.”
“He also continued these same attacks during the trial itself,” the appeals court said. “In one such statement, issued two days into the trial, Trump proclaimed that he would continue to defame Carroll ‘a thousand times.’ “
The jury had been instructed to accept the findings of a jury that in May 2023 awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding Trump sexually abused her in the department store and then defamed her after she published her account of it in a 2019 memoir.
Trump is challenging the $83 million award on several grounds, asserting “absolute immunity” for comments he made while president as he disavowed knowing Carroll and attacked her motivations, saying they were politically driven or arose from a desire to promote her memoir.
Two officers sue Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, claiming details in ‘The Rip’ are too real
MIAMI (AP) — Two South Florida police officers claim Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s recent action thriller “The Rip” used too many real-life details in its fictionalized narrative, causing harm to the officers’ personal and professional reputations, according to a defamation lawsuit.
Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana, sergeants in the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, filed the lawsuit in Miami federal court earlier this month against Artists Equity, a film production company owned by Affleck and Damon. Court filings don’t say how much the officers are suing for, but the civil complaint says they’re seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney fees, as well as a public retraction and correction.
“The Rip” features Affleck and Damon as South Florida police officers who find millions of dollars inside a house. Parts of the movie were inspired by a real 2016 case, where police found over $21 million linked to a suspected marijuana trafficker in a Miami Lakes home.
Affleck and Damon have said while promoting the film that the story is loosely based on accounts from Miami-Dade Police Capt. Chris Casiano, who served as a technical advisor on the film. Damon told The Associated Press during a January interview that he and Affleck spent time with Casiano and other narcotics officers in preparation for the film.
“We really wanted to kind of understand what those dynamics were like,” Damon said. “I mean, these units are very tight because they’re really putting their lives in each other’s hands, and they’re doing something that’s very dangerous.”
An attorney for Artists Equity declined to comment when reached Monday by the AP. But in a March 19 response to the plaintiffs’ demand letter, Leita Walker, an attorney for Artists Equity, wrote that the film does not purport to tell the true story of that incident or portray real people, which had been stated by a disclaimer in the film’s credits.
Although Smith and Santana aren’t named in the film and weren’t involved in its production, the lawsuit claims that Santana was serving as the lead detective assigned to the real case, and Smith was the sergeant who supervised the investigative team. The film’s inclusion of real details about the case gives the impression that the characters are based on the plaintiffs, the suit said.
This, the lawsuit claims, has given friends, family members and colleagues the impression that the plaintiffs committed the criminal acts that appear in the film, which include (SPOILER ALERT) conspiring to steal seized drug money, murdering a supervising officer, communicating with cartel members, committing arson in a residential neighborhood, endangering the lives of civilians, repeatedly violating core law-enforcement protocols and executing a federal agent rather than making an arrest.
Walker wrote in March that the plaintiffs haven’t even identified which particular character is supposed to be based on Smith or Santana, so even if “The Rip” was actually about a real-life narcotics team, there’s no way to connect any of the characters to the plaintiffs.
“The Rip,” directed by Joe Carnahan, debuted in January on Netflix. It’s currently rated 78% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
New York
Appeals court spares President Trump from paying $83 million defamation award, for now
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump won’t have to pay an $83 million defamation award to a longtime advice columnist until the U.S. Supreme Court gets a chance to review the case or reject an appeal, according to a court entry Tuesday.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to a request by one of Trump’s lawyers that it let the president delay the payment to E. Jean Carroll, though it required that Trump post a $7.4 million bond to cover any additional interest costs, a request Carroll’s attorney had made.
The appeals court late last month refused Trump’s request for a rare meeting of the full 2nd Circuit to hear an appeal of a three-judge panel’s affirmance of the January 2024 verdict.
Afterward, Trump attorney Justin D. Smith asked the 2nd Circuit to stay the effect of its decision upholding the award so that Trump would not be forced to pay the judgment before the high court has a chance to consider an appeal.
Smith said last week there was a “fair prospect” that the Supreme Court will find in favor of Trump, who has called Carroll’s claims first made publicly in 2019 that she was sexually attacked by Trump in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in spring 1996 a “made up scam.”
The $83 million award to Carroll, 82, came from a jury that briefly heard Trump testify and observed his animated behavior for several days.
In upholding the verdict, a 2nd Circuit panel wrote last September that Trump continued his attacks against Carroll for at least five years, making them “more extreme and frequent as the trial approached.”
“He also continued these same attacks during the trial itself,” the appeals court said. “In one such statement, issued two days into the trial, Trump proclaimed that he would continue to defame Carroll ‘a thousand times.’ “
The jury had been instructed to accept the findings of a jury that in May 2023 awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding Trump sexually abused her in the department store and then defamed her after she published her account of it in a 2019 memoir.
Trump is challenging the $83 million award on several grounds, asserting “absolute immunity” for comments he made while president as he disavowed knowing Carroll and attacked her motivations, saying they were politically driven or arose from a desire to promote her memoir.
