Hi, I'm Alyssa Milano, and this is Sorry Not Sorry.

One of the things that makes me angriest is when I see men denying the scope of our national sexual violence epidemic

by claiming that there are many false reports of sexual assault and therefore victims cannot be trusted.

In their stunning documentary, Victim Suspect, reporter Ray D. Leon and director Nancy Schwartzman dig into cases where women were charged with filing false reports, but insist they were telling the truth.

What the investigation showed about police conduct when investigating reports of sexual assault was shocking. Ray and Nancy join us to discuss.

For a lot of survivors, there's a big fear that you won't be believed.

My name is Dianie Burmillo, my name is Emma Manian, and I'm in San Brutus, Dianie.

People on social media were talking about these women and why they didn't come forward and why they didn't give their name to them.

Why didn't they go to the police? And day after day, I was getting more and more angry because I knew why they didn't go to the police. None of us do.

I think that police get angry when they feel like someone's lying to them. I think they want to make an example of people. And I also think they know that the public is going to eat it up.

Hi, I'm Ray D. Leon. I'm a journalist working to expose problematic police tactics used against young people reporting sexual assault.

I'm Nancy Schwartzman. I make documentary films and series that expose systemic injustice and work to end sexual violence. Sorry, not sorry.

Ray and Nancy, thank you so much for being here. I want to just start with asking each of you to just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. Ray, you can go first.

So I'm Ray D. Leon. I'm a journalist and reporter. I work for a nonprofit newsroom. And for the last five years, I have dedicated my whole heart to a story exposing problematic police tactics while investigating reports of sexual assault.

And I live in California. This is where I was born and raised and yeah, you're turned Nancy.

I'm a director of victim suspect. My recent documentary and it's been an honor and a pleasure to get to capture Ray's story.

I'm suspect is my fifth film and my second feature film and I love diving into investigations that expose systemic issues. So that really look at the underlying causes and the broader sort of interwoven effects of whether it be police in action, violence against women and girls, cultural norms are on sexual violence.

And that's a kind of stuff that I'm just really drawn to and I loved working with Ray because journalists just get in there. They get in the weeds. They ask all the questions and it was really awesome to get to use the language and tactics of law enforcement in victim suspect to really expose their behavior and their tactics to me. There's no better way than to show versus to tell.

So it was like a really exciting opportunity for me.

And Ray, will you just tell us a bit about the reporting that you did that brought you to victim suspect? What made this become your heart and your passion story?

I started with one story back in 2018 that I had heard about which was really surprising really weird on its face. It seemed like this. There's the young women who said that she made up this story of rape that she told police in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

And then I read it and I saw she was facing six years in prison. I thought, man, that's just a long time. What could she have done? And I look into it. I call her attorney and as with so many other cases I found there's just so many glaring problems that journalist didn't pick up on that seemed like the prosecutors didn't care about or look into it in any way. So I thought, I guess I'll do it.

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