By Mike Matteo
Staten Island Advance, N.Y.
MIAMI — Two police officers in Florida are suing Matt Damon and Ben Affleck for defamation over their portrayal in a recent Netflix movie.
Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana, two deputies in the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, are suing the actors’ production company, Artists Equity, over characters in the Netflix movie “The Rip,” according to Entertainment Weekly.
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“The Rip” follows two Miami-Dade police officers who uncover millions of dollars of cash and corruption in the police department. The film was billed as being inspired by real-life events.
Smith and Santana, the two officers involved in the real-life case which inspired the film, claim that the film characters are heavily associated with them.
They allege this has caused “substantial harm to their personal and professional reputations” and that advertisements for the film “imply misconduct, poor judgment, and unethical behavior,” according to the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, friends and family have accused the officers of using seized money for personal gain after seeing the film. Attorneys for the officers argue “that viewers are associating the Miami-Dade Police Department and Plaintiffs with the corrupt portrayals in ‘The Rip.’”
“When you rip something, you’re stealing something. We never stole a dollar,” Santana told 7News Miami.
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