Former Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office officer Andrew L. Colborn, who was involved in the investigation of the murder at the center of the Netflix documentary series “Making a Murderer,” has filed a defamation lawsuit against the streaming service.
Colborn alleges that the filmmakers misreported and left out key facts regarding the 2005 murder of freelance photographer Teresa Halbach. He claims that they falsely accused him and others of placing evidence in the case. Colborn said that he had an impeccable reputation before the series was released.
“Despite overwhelming evidence proving Avery and Dassey’s guilt and the utter absence of evidence supporting defendant’s accusations of police misconduct, defendants falsely led viewers to the inescapable conclusion that plaintiff and others planted evidence to frame Avery for Halbach’s murder,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants omitted, distorted, and falsified material and significant facts in an effort to portray plaintiff as a corrupt police officer who planted evidence to frame an innocent man.”
Filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos worked on the series for years before they released it on Netflix at the end of 2015. The series won multiple awards since the release.
The lawsuit adds that Colborn has received a lot of ridicule since the release of the series and even threatening messages on social media.
“His reputation and that of Manitowoc County, itself, has been severely and unjustly defamed,” Colborn’s attorney, Michael Griesbach, said in a press release. “He is filing this lawsuit to set the record straight and to restore his good name.”
Colborn is requesting a jury trial and demanding a retraction, and an “honest clarification of the erroneous and false statements and depictions described above to clear his good name and restore peace of mind.”
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