Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s company Artists Equity is the topic of a lawsuit alleging defamation against two Miami law enforcement officials who inspired the film The Rip.
In response to a report by Entertainment Weekly, published on Saturday, May 9, Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana, two cops from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, are suing the actors’ production company over their depictions within the Netflix movie, created by Artists Equity and released on January 16.
Because the outlet identified, Smith and Santana aren’t mentioned by name within the film, however the lawsuit alleges that performances by Affleck, 53, and Damon, 55, were “so heavily related to the 2 officers” that the film caused “substantial harm to their personal and skilled reputations.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Artists Equity and representatives for Affleck and Damon for comment.
EW reported that the lawsuit — which seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney fees — can also be the results of the film and its advertisements implying “misconduct, poor judgment and unethical behavior in reference to an actual law enforcement operation.”
The lawsuit reportedly accuses “Damon’s LLC production company Falco Productions of defamation per se and defamation by implication.” The officers also claimed “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
Damon and Affleck starred as Lieutenant Dane Dumars and Detective Sergeant JD Byrne, respectively, in The Rip. The film followed their journey after discovering $20 million of cartel money and subsequently unearthing corruption throughout the Miami-Dade Police Department. As widely reported across the project’s release, the plot is predicated on the true story of Miami police officer Chris Casiano, who served as the pinnacle of the department’s Tactical Narcotics Team in 2016 when a money stash was uncovered.
Smith and Santana’s lawsuit details that the pair themselves “seized greater than $21 million in June 2016” as a part of the event. The pair reportedly allege that “the film’s use of unique, non-generic details of the June 29, 2016, investigation, combined with its Miami-Dade setting and portrayal of a narcotics team, creates an inexpensive inference that the officers depicted are Plaintiffs.”
The lawsuit also alleges that Smith and Santana’s lawyers sent the businesses answerable for the film a letter “enumerating” the allegedly defamatory details within the movie and demanded that they stop and desist from releasing it in December 2025.
Per the lawsuit, a representative for the businesses responded “after the film was released” and alleged that the concerns were “unfounded since the film didn’t expressly name Sergeant Smith and there was no implication that the Plaintiffs engaged in any misconduct within the film.”