John B. Wilson, a former Staples Inc. executive who recently lived in Lynnfield, and his son John B. Wilson Jr. have filed a complaint at Barnstable County Superior Court against Netflix alleging that the company defamed the Wilsons by selectively and misleadingly portraying their family in the documentary “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal.”
The documentary’s editor, Jon Karmen, director, Chris Smith, and other production companies were also listed as defendants in the complaint.
In the court filing, the summary stated that the “defendants depicted false narratives about the Wilsons while consciously disregarding the substantial evidence given to them and that was publicly available prior to publishing their film.”
The summary also stated that the documentary has destroyed the Wilsons’ reputations.
“Netflix willingly chose to group my highly qualified children and me into a scandal involving celebrities who, unlike me, pled guilty and acknowledged their roles in shameful actions like photoshopping images of fake athletes, cheating on tests, and making bribe payments to coaches,” Wilson said in a statement released by his attorneys. “In the interest of justice and accountability, Netflix must pay for the deliberate and devastating harm that they’ve done to my family.”
Wilson was sentenced to 15 months in prison after jurors found him guilty of bribery and fraud charges for paying Rick Singer, the mastermind of the admissions scheme, to secure spots for his children to attend top universities in 2021.
However, Wilson successfully appealed the convictions, and last May, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out all convictions against Wilson, except one for falsely claiming $220,000 he made as payments to secure his son’s spot at the University of Southern California as charitable donations and business expenses in his 2014 tax returns.
The filing also stated that prior to the documentary’s scheduled release in March 2021, the Wilsons submitted a 450-plus-page letter to Netflix, asking the company to look at publicly available information and evidence regarding the charges against Wilson. It declared that Wilson and his children “could not simply be grouped into a narrative with other individuals who, unlike him, had pleaded guilty (because they were guilty), to their roles in the college admissions scandal.”
The court document emphasized that the Wilsons were never alleged to have cheated on their tests, staged and photoshopped fake photos, or bribed college coaches and employees.
“Instead, the defendants vilified the Wilsons through multiple pernicious filmmaking techniques, which lead a reasonable viewer to falsely conclude, among others, that the allegations against Mr. Wilson were the same as the unrelated bad characters portrayed in the film,” the filing stated.
According to the statement, Netflix has failed to update the documentary to show that Wilson was cleared of all of the core charges against him, leaving viewers to believe that he defrauded USC and other colleges.
Additionally, William Charles Tanenbaum, the lead lawyer for the Wilsons, said in the statement that Wilson was used as a “hook” for the Boston-based prosecutors because he was the sole initial defendant who lived in Massachusetts.
“They were willing to charge an innocent man to help them justify bringing the trials for all the Hollywood celebrities and dozens of other West Coast defendants in this high-profile case — along with the career-boosting media spotlights — to Boston,” Tanenbaum said.
“The Wilson family has been devastated by the film’s defamation and is seeking legal redress, insisting that Netflix retract their false statements and issue public apologies,” the statement reads. “The lawsuit also requests monetary damages for the profound harm to their reputations and livelihoods.”
