Former Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein and Netflix announced Tuesday they've settled the defamation lawsuit she filed four years ago over her portrayal in the streaming service's miniseries about the five Black and Latino teenagers known as the now-exonerated Central Park Five.
Fairstein had argued that the 2019 four-part series "When They See Us" defamed her by portraying her as a "racist, unethical villain" and attributed actions, responsibilities and viewpoints that were not hers.
The case was expected to go to trial later this month. Fairstein said in a statement that "the decision to conclude this fight was not an easy one," expressing confidence she would have presented a "compelling case to the jury." While Fairstein will not receive any money as part of the settlement, Netflix has agreed to donate $1 million to the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to exonerate people who've been wrongly convicted.
Viewers of the series will also now see a disclaimer that states, "While the motion picture is inspired by actual events and persons, certain characters, incidents, locations, dialogue, and names are fictionalized for the purposes of dramatization."
"This is what this case was all about – not about 'winning' or about any financial restitution, but about my reputation and that of my colleagues," she said in a statement. "It was about setting the historical record straight that the villainous caricature invented by the defendants and portrayed on screen was not me."
Fairstein was the top Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor in 1989 when the five teenagers were charged with a vicious attack on a jogger in Central Park. The convictions were overturned in 2002 after convicted murderer and serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to committing the crime alone. DNA linked him to it.
Fairstein, who became a best-selling crime author after retiring from the Manhattan district attorney's office, observed the boys' interrogation but didn't personally try the case.
She was dropped by her publisher and resigned from several boards she served on after "When They See Us," which dramatizes the events surrounding the trial, debuted.
Ava DuVernay, who directed and co-wrote the series, and Attica Locke, a writer and producer of the series, were named as defendants in the defamation lawsuit. DuVernay said in a statement posted on the social media platform X that she still believes that Fairstein was responsible for the investigation and prosecution of the five teens.
"As the head of the Manhattan Sex Crimes unit, Linda Fairstein was in the precinct for over 35 hours straight while the boys were interrogated as adults, often without parents present," she said, claiming that Fairstein knew what was happening in the interrogation rooms.
DuVernay accused Fairstein of not being willing to face a jury of her peers.
"I hope that one day Linda Fairstein can come to terms with the part she played in this miscarriage of justice and finally accept responsibility" she said.
More than 67 million people watched Donald Trump and Kamala Harris debate. That’s way up from June
An estimated 67.1 million people watched the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a sharp increase from the June debate that eventually led to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race.
The debate was run by ABC News but shown on 17 different networks, the Nielsen company said. The Trump-Biden debate in June was seen by 51.3 million people.
Tuesday's count was short of the record viewership for a presidential debate, when 84 million people saw Trump's and Hillary Clinton's first faceoff in 2016. The first debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 reached 73.1 million people.
With Harris widely perceived to have outperformed Trump on Tuesday night, the former president and his supporters are sharply criticizing ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. The journalists waded into on-the-fly fact checks during the debate, correcting four statements by Trump.
No other debates are currently scheduled between the two presidential candidates, although there's been some talk about it and Fox News Channel has publicly offered alternatives. CBS will host a vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance.
Tuesday's debate stakes were high to begin with, not only because of the impending election itself but because the last presidential debate uncorked a series of events that ended several weeks later with Biden's withdrawal from the race after his performance was widely panned.
Opinions on how ABC handled the latest debate Tuesday were, in a large sense, a Rorschach test on how supporters of both sides felt about how it went. MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes sent a message on X that the ABC moderators were doing an "excellent" job — only to be answered by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who said,... Read More