NEW YORK — A handful of scenes from the award-winning “When They See Us” series about the Central Park Five could be misconstrued by viewers as “based in fact,” a federal judge wrote Monday, allowing a defamation suit by ex-Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor Linda Fairstein to proceed.
District Judge Kevin Castel ruled five scenes in the 2019 series portraying Fairstein — who oversaw the team seeking convictions of five teens arrested for the rape and beating of jogger Trisha Meili in 1989 — could be seen as defamatory.
“These scenes depict Fairstein as orchestrating acts of misconduct, including the withholding of evidence, the existence of ‘tapes’ showing that she ‘coerced’ confessions from the Five, an instruction not to use ‘kid gloves’ when questioning suspects, and directing a racially discriminatory police roundup of young men in Harlem,” Castel wrote.
“The average viewer could conclude that these scenes have a basis in fact and do not merely reflect the creators’ opinions about controversial historical events.”
The five young men arrested were convicted and imprisoned until convicted rapist and murderer Matias Reyes admitted he attacked Meili. The five were released, sued the city and won a $41 million settlement in 2014.
Fairstein was portrayed by Felicity Huffman in the series.
Last year Fairstein sued Netflix, director Ava Duvernay and producer Attica Locke, alleging they depicted her “as a racist, unethical villain who is determined to jail innocent children of color at any cost.”
After the series premiered, Fairstein was forced to resign from the boards of three large non-profit institutions, was dropped by her publisher and her agent, and lost a series of speaking appearances and legal consulting jobs.
She singled out 11 scenes in the documentary as defamatory, but Castel winnowed the list down to five that Fairstein could plausibly allege defamation. In one, she’s portrayed as directing the NYPD to round up young Black men in Harlem in a search for the suspects.
“Let’s get an army of blue up in Harlem. You go into those projects and you stop every little thug you see. You bring every kid who was in the park last night,” Huffman-as-Fairstein says in the series. Fairstein maintains she ordered no such roundup, and quoting her using the word “thug” portrays her as a racist.
Netflix has defended the series, calling Fairstein’s suit “frivolous” and “without merit.”
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