Two Miami-Dade sheriff's deputies have filed a lawsuit against Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, alleging that their portrayal in the Netflix crime drama 'The Rip' defames them by depicting them as 'dirty cops'. The deputies, Jonathan Santana and Jason Smith, are seeking damages from the actors' production company, Artists Equity.
The film dramatises a 2016 drug bust in Miami Lakes where $24m in cash was recovered from a private residence, the largest haul in the department's history. The lawsuit claims that the fictionalised account, in which Damon and Affleck play narcotics agents tempted by the unsupervised cash, unfairly tarnishes the reputation of the real officers involved.
Santana told 7 News Miami: 'When you rip something, you’re stealing something. We never stole a dollar.' The film's title, 'The Rip', is slang for stealing, which Santana says implies the officers misappropriated funds.
The lawsuit, filed on 6 May in a Florida federal court, also contends that Santana and Smith should have been paid as consultants, as another officer not involved in the raid was. Their attorney, Ignacio Alvarez, stated that the officers suffered 'substantial harm to their personal and professional reputations'.
Neither deputy is named in the film, but libel lawyers note that defamation can still be proven if fictional characters are closely aligned with real individuals. Artists Equity has denied the allegations, pointing to the film's use of fictional names and settings, and its disclaimer that the story is dramatised and not intended to portray real people.
