Exonerated Dad Sues Netflix Over Varsity Blues ‘Documentary’
John Wilson has already defeated federal prosecutors in their case against the former Staples executive. Now the father to three children who were accepted into USC, Stanford and Harvard as members of water polo and sailing teams turns his attention to Netflix for what he says was a defamatory portrayal in Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal (2021).
Wilson, along with his son Johnny Wilson, recently sued Netflix, the film company and the film’s director and producer, in a Barnstable, Mass., superior court. They demand a jury trial and court-ordered public apologies, retractions and monetary damages.
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Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated all the bribery, fraud and conspiracy convictions against two dads—Wilson and Gamal Abdelaziz—who were among 57 people charged in the 2019 scandal centering around university admissions. Prosecutors later dismissed those overturned charges.
Unlike many other defendants, including celebrity parents Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, Wilson wasn’t accused of the outrageous misconduct that made the scandal so infamous. He didn’t bribe proctors to alter standardized test scores, falsely claim his children suffered from learning disabilities or stage fake photos of his kids playing sports. Wilson also didn’t funnel money to coaches at elite schools so they’d designate his children as athletic recruits. Wilson’s misstep was getting connected to scandal mastermind Rick Singer, whose foundation received a donation from Wilson.
Netflix lists the film under the categories “Documentary Films” and “Social & Cultural Docs.” Operation Varsity Blues features dramatic reenactments of scenes derived from transcripts and other materials in the case, as well as actual footage and interviews with commentators. Wilson was played by actor Roger Rignack, who is billed second in the cast after Golden Globe-nominated actor Matthew Modine, who played disgraced admissions consultant Singer.
Wilson’s attorneys, William Charles Tanenbaum and Howard Cooper, argue the defendants “vilified the Wilsons” by using “pernicious filmmaking techniques.” Wilson was grouped with parents accused of various misdeeds and who in some cases served prison time.
This was especially problematic, Wilson argues, because Netflix labeling the film a “documentary” signals to viewers “what is to be presented is truthful.” To that point, the statement “the conversations in this film are real” appears before the four-minute mark in the film.
The complaint charges Netflix “blurred the lines” between wrongdoer parents and Wilson by interspersing Wilson’s “edited words and images at least 26 times before and after” the film shows other parents “brazenly committing illegal acts.” Also problematic, Wilson maintains, his “name and voice” are superimposed “over a scene depicting other actors photoshopping fake photos of a non-athlete child.”
This editing is portrayed as especially egregious because Johnny Wilson was a real Division I college athlete in water polo who was twice selected for the U.S. Olympic water polo team development program, and who earned the 93rd percentile score on his ACT. John Wilson also points out his twin daughters “achieved perfect and near-perfect ACT scores.”
Wilson further questions why Operation Varsity Blues would, as he tells it, go “out of its way” to have a commentator tell viewers Huffman’s daughter “would have gotten” into her preferred college without Singer’s scheme because of her academic record. The film makes similarly exculpating qualifiers for others connected to the scandal, but not for Wilson or his kids.
Before Operation Varsity Blues was released in 2021, Wilson’s attorneys wrote to Netflix and raised questions about pre-publication promotional material they had read about the film. They specifically worried about the use of “interviews and narrative recreations” of FBI wiretapped conversations. The attorneys pleaded with Netflix to not engage in “potentially defamatory suggestions of fact and innuendo.”
Wilson’s attorneys claim their client was a target of federal prosecutors because he lived in Massachusetts. The attorneys argue Wilson was the “venue hook” for prosecutors in Boston to assert they had jurisdiction over “all the Hollywood celebrities and dozens of other West Coast defendants in this high-profile case.”
Netflix didn’t respond to a request for comment, but its attorneys (and those of the other defendants) will answer the complaint in the coming weeks.
Expect Netflix to maintain it lawfully relied on government accusations against Wilson—who, before being exonerated on appeal in 2023, was convicted by a jury in 2021. Netflix could maintain at the time the film was released, it had reasonable grounds to portray Wilson in an unfavorable light. Wilson could attempt to rebut that defense by referring to the editing methods used to depict him in the movie.
Netflix could also assert that while Operation Varsity Blues is categorized as a “documentary film” under Netflix’s categorization system, other films in that category rely on dramatic devices to tell a story. That method of storytelling is arguably consistent with First Amendment free expression. For instance, Netflix’s The Devil on Trial (2023) falls under “documentary film” and features reenactments by actors, home video clips and interviews about the use of demonic possession as a defense in a murder trial.
Netflix might also question the cause of reputational harm. Netflix could assert that Wilson being charged with a crime in a high-profile controversy was the primary source of his and his son’s reputational harm.
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