Linda Fairstein went from law enforcement hero to pariah in less than a week, thanks to When They See Us

The New York Times

As one of the first leaders of the Manhattan district attorney’s sex crimes unit that inspired Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Fairstein was one of the most well-known prosecutors in the country, parlaying her fame into a successful career as a crime novelist. Glamour named her one of its Women of the Year in 1993. When The New York Times last profiled her less than two years ago, it was for a story about her home wall decor. "But since last Friday and the premiere of When They See Us, Ava DuVernay’s Netflix series about the Central Park jogger case, Ms. Fairstein has become synonymous with something else: The story of how the justice system wrongly sent five black and Latino teenagers to prison for a horrific rape," says The Times. Fairstein this week was forced to resign from several charity boards, as well ad her alma mater. And on Friday, her book publisher dropped her. "Ms. Fairstein’s conduct during the case has been a matter of intense debate and criticism since a man named Matias Reyes surfaced in 2002 to confess that he committed the crime," says The Times. "Ms. Fairstein continued to write books and serve on important boards even after the convictions were overturned, as the case faded into memory for many. But the Netflix series has placed the prosecution back on center stage, where the power of television’s narrative focus, the lightning speed of online reaction and the villainous characterization of Ms. Fairstein have made her a target of public outrage." Fairstein, for her part, calls Ava DuVernay's series, which took liberties with her dialogue, “grossly and maliciously inaccurate." Although her attorney has threatened legal action, her position as a public figure would make it difficult for her to win a defamation suit. As The Times notes, Fairstein, in a way, is "still fighting" with the five men whom she had locked up as youths: "Long after her office moved to erase their convictions, and essentially without any evidence beyond their problematic confessions, she and others involved in the investigation have maintained that the men probably played some role in the rape, which they deny."