Insectarium CEO sues ‘Bug Out’ documentary director, Amazon alleging defamation

The Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion, as well as its CEO, wants its day in court over a documentary series that damaged its reputation, as well as the reputation of its CEO, a lawsuit alleges.

The eight-count defamation lawsuit filed in May claims that the IMDb TV series Bug Out has damaged the reputations of the Insectarium, CEO John Cambridge, and Cambridge’s father, Robert Cambridge. The series, released in March, “includes numerous factual assertions that are not true,” the suit alleges.

Cambridge’s father, an attorney and Insectarium board member, filed suit against defendants including Bug Out director Ben Feldman, Insectarium founder Steve Kanya, private investigator Jim Maxwell, former employees and Bug Out interview subjects Christine Rzepnicki, Christopher Tomasetto, and Alison Mumper, as well as distributor Amazon, and production companies The Cinemart and Asta Entertainment.

The Insectarium is widely known for a 2018 incident in which thousands of creatures worth tens of thousands of dollars were reported stolen. The suit alleges the series pushed a narrative that the removed animals belonged to employees, and that the theft “was all fabricated,” as defendant Tomasetto put it in the show. The suit claims Tomasetto knowingly made false statements in the documentary, and that fellow former employee Mumper supported them. No one has been charged in the theft, and it remains unclear what happened.

Tomasetto and Mumper have denied various allegations against them in court filings. Tomasetto, for example, said in his response to the complaint that “a large majority of the animals that were reported stolen were not present in the museum at the time of the heist,” and that at the time of the incident, the Insectarium “owned very few of their own insects.” Mumper said in her response that “there was an over exaggeration of animals stolen” from the Insectarium, and that “there were less animals than alleged stolen owned by [the museum].”

» READ MORE: Philadelphia’s Insectarium had $40,000 worth of creatures stolen in 2018. A new true crime series, ‘Bug Out,’ tells the story.

The suit also claims that the series portrays Cambridge in a “much more negative manner” than other subjects, primarily by “advancing the allegation that [he] stole Mr. Kanya’s business in a dishonest and disreputable manner.” Kanya opened the Insectarium in 1992, but Cambridge took over as CEO around 2016 — an event that Kanya contends in the series was part of a plan to “get me out and take the museum from me.”

Director Feldman, a former attorney, allegedly knew Kanya’s take to be false because he had followed a 2018 case between the Insectarium and its founder in which the Insectarium prevailed, the suit says. But the series still “portrayed Dr. Cambridge as an individual who had unfairly stolen a business from Mr. Kanya.”

Bug Out also contains statements from former employee Rzepnicki calling Cambridge a “psychopathic narcissist” who had “taken a ton of money from the museum.” The suit contends those statements are false and Cambridge and his parents “advanced ‘a ton of money’ to allow [the Insectarium] to survive.” Cambridge filed for personal bankruptcy earlier this year, according to a WHYY report.

“No effort was made to portray Dr. Cambridge in other than a false light,” the suit alleges.

» READ MORE: Thieves swipe over 7,000 live bugs, other critters from Philly museum in suspected inside job

Additionally, the suit says that Bug Out damaged the reputation of Cambridge’s father by claiming that Cambridge’s parents assisted in the alleged theft of the Insectarium from Kanya.

Attorneys listed on the case’s docket as representing Amazon did not immediately reply to request for comment. Other defendants did not have attorneys listed or file responses. In total, the suit is seeking a judgment in excess of $400,000.