In a reversal of typical ripped-from-the-headlines scenarios, three undercover Minneapolis Police Officers, all part of a prostitution sting over the summer have decided to sue everyone they can. That’s because the names of all three officers, who probably watched South Park to prepare for their investigation of massage parlors, were released to the public in court documents.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the officers are listed as John Does in the lawsuit, which was filed on Thursday. However, as Gawker points out, the same paper’s previous article pertaining to the original prostitution sting’s court cases — which were thrown out due because the “undercover police investigators went too far” — names all three of them: Steve Lecy, Christopher Reiter and Abubakar Muridi.

The release of their names back in August is precisely why the three “John Does” have filed their lawsuit against the city, county and state:

The officers…claim that data on undercover officers is private and the defendants violated the Minnesota Data Practices Act. The lawsuit says the city failed to protect their identities as required by law, and the disclosure compromised the officers’ ability to conduct undercover operations. “The disclosures of private data identifying Plaintiffs was not inadvertent or accidental, but a willful act,” the lawsuit states.

Aside from the breach of privacy, the lawsuit also cites the negative backlash that all three officers have received as a result of their names’ publication, both on the job and at home:

The lawsuit says that since the officers’ names were disclosed, the officers and their families have received negative comments and have suffered “stress, anxiety, and emotional damage.” The officers have also been harassed at work and their reputations have been damaged, the lawsuit claims.

Remember the “officers and their families” line above, because according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune‘s original article, here’s what these three family men allegedly did while on the job:

On the recording, after nearly 30 minutes of small talk about tattoos, the weather and his broken hand, Lecy, who also compliments the woman’s anatomy, interrupts the massage and asks the woman if she wants him to flip onto his back. She begins touching his genitals as part of a naked “body-to-body” massage. Lecy can be heard moaning. A few moments later, he says the words “repeat customers,” code to backup officers that it’s time for an arrest. They then enter the room.

Nearly 20 minutes into his interaction with the woman, court documents say, Reiter pointed to his groin after she asked “if there were any areas she had missed.” She started to rub his genitals and they negotiated a price for further action “that would take care of him,” the documents say.

She was arrested in May after officer Abubakar Muridi asked her to rub his genitals before he negotiated a price for sex.

According to Lt. Bob Kroll, head of the local police union, the three officers “didn’t do anything wrong.” Rather, it was the city who did wrong. They “should have known better” since publicly naming the officers was “a clear violation of law.”

In a weird twist, Lecy appeared on an episode of COPS back in 2013. He and fellow officer Terry Nutter (yes, “Nutter”) responded to reports of a registered sex offender allegedly trying to lure a young girl:

[h/t Gawker]

[Image via screngrab]

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