February 12, 2007
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
media@aclu.org DENVER - In a
lawsuit filed today, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado charged that
a Denver police officer's "recklessly sloppy" police work - which included false
statements and crucial omissions in an affidavit the officer submitted to a
judge - caused a local woman with no criminal record to be falsely arrested and
jailed for an incident with which she had no connection
whatsoever.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of
Valerie Rodriguez, who has worked for a nationally known financial company in
Denver for seven years. When Rodriguez applied for a temporary
seasonal job with the postal service in 2005, she was rejected when a background
check erroneously revealed that she had a criminal record.
"Our client immediately investigated what she knew was a terrible mistake,"
said Elisa Moran, who represents Rodriguez as an ACLU cooperating
attorney. "She found out that there was an outstanding warrant for her
arrest, for an alleged assault of a woman whom she did not know and had never
met. When Valerie went to the Denver Police Department to straighten out
the error, she was arrested, fingerprinted, and thrown into a cramped and scary
jail cell, where she spent hours waiting for bail."
The bogus
warrant stemmed from an incident nine months earlier at a gas station in
Denver's Five Points neighborhood. A young woman flagged down officer
Timothy Scudder, the defendant in the ACLU's lawsuit. She reported that
she had been struck by an acquaintance she knew as "Big Val." The victim
said that "Big Val," who was reportedly a drug user and prostitute, had fled the
scene on foot.
"The victim said that 'Big Val' lived a
few blocks away and that her full name was Valerie Rodriguez," said
Moran. "Officer Scudder searched a non-criminal computer database
for that name, found our client's name, and then wrote up a criminal complaint
and warrant application with our client's date of birth, social security number,
and driver's license number."
"Valerie had no criminal
record, had been living in the home she owns in Aurora for six years, and had
never lived anywhere near Five Points," added Moran. "If Officer Scudder
had spent two additional minutes investigating, he would have found the eight
page criminal record of a different Valerie Rodriguez who did live in the Five
Points area. Officer Scudder did not bother showing any photographs
to the victim and he did not bother checking out the nearby address of the
suspect that the victim provided. Instead, he obtained an arrest
warrant by falsely stating that the victim knew our client and had identified
her as the person responsible for a criminal assault."
After a
Channel 7 news investigation publicized Rodriguez's ordeal, the Denver Police
Department conducted an investigation. Officer Scudder received a written
reprimand for "improper procedure." According to today's lawsuit, which
seeks compensation for Rodriguez's lost employment and other expenses and losses
caused by her ordeal, the false charges of assault against Rodriguez were
dismissed. Rodriguez was able to get an order sealing the record of her false
arrest.
"Police officers have the power to
scribble a few lines on a pre-printed form and obtain a warrant for a person's
arrest," said Mark Silverstein, the ACLU of Colorado's Legal Director.
"Police have a responsibility to exercise that power with the utmost care.
That did not happen in this case."
"If Officer Scudder had
investigated properly, he would not have sought a warrant for Valerie's arrest,"
Silverstein added. "If Officer Scudder had submitted an honest affidavit
with all the facts, no judge would have issued the warrant. Because of
Officer Scudder's recklessly sloppy police work, however, Valerie lost a job
opportunity, endured the horror of a baseless arrest, spent time in a jail cell,
and then had to spend hours and dollars to clear her name and get the groundless
charges dismissed."
"What happened to our client raises
serious questions about how many other groundless warrants are silently lurking
in police computers," Silverstein said, noting that ACLU lawyers filed a lawsuit
four months ago against a Lakewood detective who obtained a similarly bogus
warrant that caused the false arrest and jailing of another innocent woman.
"These warrants will remain active for months or years," Silverstein added, "and
the persons wrongly named will have no idea they are accused of something they
did not do. They won't know until an officer happens to check the
computer, and a minor accident or a routine traffic stop is suddenly transformed
into a mandatory trip to jail, complete with handcuffs, fingerprints, mug shots,
and who knows how long a wait for bail."
The ACLU lawsuit,
Rodriguez v. Scudder, was filed in federal district court in Denver.
The complaint is available online at:
www.aclu-co.org/docket/200613/Rodriguez_v_Scudder_complaint_02-12-07.pdf
