Linda Fairstein, the Villain in ‘When They See Us,’ Helped Cover for Harvey Weinstein

Every story needs a villain, and in When They See Us, a new Netflix miniseries from director Ava DuVernary, that villain is former Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor Linda Fairstein.

When They See Us dramatizes the true story of five teenagers from Harlem who were falsely convicted of raping a female jogger in Central Park on the night of April 19, 1989. Kevin Richardson (actor Asante Blackk), Antron McCray (Caleel Harris), Yusef Salaam (Ethan Herisse),  Raymond Santana (Marquis Rodriguez), and Korey Wise (Jharrel Jerome) all spent between 6 and 13 years in prison. In 2002, a serial rapist named Matias Reyes already in prison for life confessed that he and he alone committed the rape. His DNA matched the only DNA recovered of the scene, and all five men, known as the Central Park Five, were exonerated.

The reason those five men—who were in fact boys at the time of their arrest—ended up in prison despite the fact that, as they maintain to this day, none were guilty is, in the show, largely attributed to Fairstein. Fairstein was the head of the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office from 1976 until 2002, and led the prosecution in the Central Park jogger case. In When They See Us, Fairstein is played by Desperate Housewives actor Felicity Huffman. Huffman, you may recall, recently had her own legal troubles for her involvement in the college admissions scandal, for which she pled guilty.

Fairstein is the obvious choice for the villain of When They See Us, even more so for those who know the story of the real woman. In addition to her legal career, she also wrote the bestselling Alexandra Cooper novels, a series about a Manhattan lawyer based on her own experiences. The Central Park jogger case is undoubtedly the biggest controversy on her record—and to this day, she maintains that Reyes was merely the sixth attacker on that night in 1989 and that the Central Park Five are guilty—but it is not the only one. She was also accused of helping to cover up Harvey Weinstein‘s sexual misconduct.

In 2015, Italian model Ambra Battilana filed a police complaint against the now-disgraced Hollywood executive. Battilana had recorded a conversation in which Weinstein appeared to admit to molesting her. In a 2017 interview with NPR, two New York Times reporters detailed how powerful New York lawyers worked with Weinstein and the New York District Attorney’s office to help bury the case—included, said reporter Megan Twohey, Linda Fairstein.

“There were high-profile attorneys who stepped up to Harvey’s side, including Linda Fairstein, the former sex crimes prosecutor here in Manhattan, who was willing to facilitate introductions to the current sex crimes prosecutor who was handling the case,” Twohey said. “And within weeks that case was dead.”

Fairstein served on Weinstein’s legal team as a consultant, the Times reported, a move totally at odds with the persona she had previously built: A crusader for the unheard victims of sexual assault.

In a 2002 article in The Village Voice, a former appellate court judge on the 1993 appeals decision on Yusef Salaam’s case said of Fairstein: “I was concerned about a criminal justice system that would tolerate the conduct of the prosecutor, Linda Fairstein, who deliberately engineered the 15-year-old’s confession … Fairstein wanted to make a name. She didn’t care. She wasn’t a human.”

Last year, Fairstein was announced as the winner of a literary award—the 2019 lifetime achievement Grand Master Award at their annual Edgar Awards—but the Mystery Writers of America rescinded the award after fellow author Attica Locke (who also served as a writer on When They See Us) criticized the decision.

Stream When They See Us on Netflix