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Two South Florida officers sue Ben Affleck and Matt Damon over The Rip

moviesMay 11, 2026868

Two Miami-Dade deputies, Jonathan Santana and Jason Smith, sued Ben Affleck and Matt Damon over Netflix's The Rip, filing a defamation lawsuit in Florida and seeking damages. The Rip stars Affleck and Damon as South Florida police officers WHO find millions of dollars inside a house; Santana and Smith say the film borrows identifiable details from their real raid and portrays them as dirty cops WHO stole drug money and committed murder. Their lawyer Ignacio Alvarez says the portrayals have hurt the deputies' personal and professional reputations. The lawsuit matters because it tests legal limits on fictionalizing real investigations and could expose filmmakers to defamation claims when movies use identifiable elements from actual cases.

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