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New Lawsuit Over Meek Mill Documentary
A former Philadelphia police officer has sued claiming she was defamed in a documentary about rapper Meek Mill's high-profile clashes with the city's legal system. Ex-police officer Sequeta Williams filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleging she was defamed in an episode of Free Meek, the documentary series that was made available on Amazon Prime last year. The complaint lists Amazon, Jay-Z and his entertainment company Roc Nation, rapper Meek Mill (a/k/a Robert Rihmeek Williams) and Rolling Stone publisher Wenner Media as defendants. Williams v. Williams, 2:2020cv00122 (E.D.Pa.).
According to the 33-page complaint, which Philadelphia attorney Steven Marino of Marino & Associates filed in January, the problematic area in the documentary occurred when a photograph of Sequeta Williams appeared while Defender Association of Philadelphia attorney Bradley Bridge and a journalist from Rolling Stone spoke about a list of allegedly problematic police officers that the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office maintains. The so-called "Do Not Call" list includes names of officers who prosecutors don't use as witnesses because their testimony is believed to be unreliable.
Although Williams is included on that list, she argues it's not because of any history of dishonesty, but rather for criminal charges that arose after four people tried to mug her and her significant other while she was off duty. "The communication presented in Season 1, Episode 4 of the documentary series 'Free Meek' entitled 'Filthadelphia' falsely imputes a message to the minds of the average persons among whom it is intended to circulate that plaintiff Sequeta Williams was a dirty and dishonest police officer," the complaint states.
The complaint asserts Williams wasn't placed on the list because of unreliable testimony. Rather, she says, it stemmed from charges of simple assault and other offenses as a result of an off-duty incident where she allegedly pulled a firearm in an effort to de-escalate a mugging attempt. She was acquitted on all charges in that case, according to the complaint.
Neither Bridge, who has been handling appeals involving allegedly corrupt police officers since 1995, nor Rolling Stone journalist Paul Solotaroff were named as defendants in the complaint, and in the documentary they did not mention Williams' name, but had been only discussing the nature of the "Do Not Call" list when the graphic of Williams appeared in the documentary.
Williams' suit is the latest in a long-running legal saga that has developed around Mills' underlying criminal case and the documentary. Mills criminal case and closely watched spat with presiding Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Genece Brinkley over the lengthy criminal sentence she imposed for Mills' probation violations caught national attention and stirred controversy in the local legal community. Even before the documentary aired, Judge Brinkley's attorney A. Charles Peruto sued the moviemakers, alleging they violated state and federal Wiretap Acts by using off-the-record comments he made when being interviewed for the documentary. That suit was dismissed in June. Peruto v. ROC Nation, 386 F.Supp. 3d 471 (E.D.Pa. 2019).
For its counsel, Roc Nation has hired Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to represent it in the lawsuit. Court records name the law firm's Alex Spiro, Derek Shaffer and Ellyde Thompson as attorneys for Roc Nation, Jay-Z and Mill. All three are partners, with Shaffer based in Washington, DC, and both Spiro and Thompson working out of New York. Spiro, along with Thompson, is fresh off successfully defending billionaire industrialist Elon Musk in a defamation suit over Musk's widely publicized reference to a British cave explorer as a "pedo guy." Spiro also has a history representing Jay-Z and recently acted as counsel for the hip-hop icon in a dispute with the owner of his Rocawear clothing brand.
According to the court docket, Amazon and Wenner Media hadn't yet retained defense counsel when this article was written.
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Max Mitchell is a reporter for The Legal Intelligencer, the Philadelphia-based ALM sibling publication of Entertainment Law & Finance. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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