Christian Kiely persuades judge to deny motion to dismiss ‘Varsity Blues’ defamation case
Christian G. Kiely defeated Netflix’s effort to dismiss a defamation lawsuit related to a program dramatizing the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal.
Netflix and other defendants created and aired a program examining the conduct of several parents charged in the Varsity Blues prosecution with attempting to secure their children’s admission to elite colleges through fraud and bribery.
The firm’s client, John B. Wilson, maintained his innocence throughout, and was one of only two parents charged to take his case to trial. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned all of the core convictions against him, and the government elected not to re-try the case.
Wilson and his son John Wilson Jr. are pursuing a defamation claim against the defendants for unfairly portraying their family and their conduct. They assert that the Netflix film intentionally blurred the conduct of culpable families with that of their own and was intentionally inaccurate and false.
John Wilson Jr. was a highly accomplished water polo player and a member of the United States Olympic development program, and who was legitimately recruited by Division 1 college programs. He also legitimately achieved high scores on his college entrance exams.
In John Wilson’s federal indictments, prosecutors never alleged that his son was a “fake” athlete or cheated on his college entrance exams. However, the Netflix program creates the opposite impression, by interspersing scenes portraying Wilson and his son among scenes portraying brazen fraud committed by other parents, all of whom staged and photoshopped photos of their non-athlete children playing sports they did not play, and all of whom pleaded guilty to this conduct.
A Massachusetts Superior Court judge rejected the defendants’ argument that the Wilsons’ complaint should be dismissed based on the fair report privilege, ruling that a reasonable jury could conclude that defendants’ selective editing materially misled viewers of the film regarding the Wilsons’ culpability.
The judge also found that the Wilsons sufficiently allege “actual malice” by the defendants – particularly that the defendants knew that the federal criminal case against John Wilson was fundamentally different from the cases against the other parents featured in the film.
The firm jointly represents the Wilsons with William Charles Tanenbaum, Esq. of Beverly Hills, Calif.