A grandmother who was falsely arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service has filed a lawsuit against the federal government after agents mistakenly identified her as someone else.
The Institute for Justice filed a civil rights lawsuit on Tuesday in federal court alleging false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and search and seizure. The Institute for Justice stated the Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable false arrests, and the government must compensate victims when officers violate the Constitution.
“The officers’ misidentifying Penny was inexcusable and violated state and federal law,” said IJ Senior Attorney Paul Avelar. “To make matters worse, even if Penny had been the fugitive they were looking for, the officers’ over-the-top display of force was uncalled for, given that the fugitive was wanted only for failing to check in with a probation officer after being released from prison twenty-five years ago for nonviolent crimes.”
This lawsuit follows ABC15’s series of investigations, and after it took the federal government six months to publicly release the body camera video of Penny’s arrest.
The body camera video shows six armed U.S. Marshals falsely arresting Penny.
“We have an arrest warrant,” a federal agent says on the video.
“For me?” responds Penny.
“Yes. For you,” the officer says.
“Who am I?” asks Penny.
Multiple agents then yell at Penny, “Turn away. Turn around. Turn away. We’ll discuss it later. Turn away. You’re gonna get hit.”
“If you turn around again. You’re getting Tased. You understand me,” a federal agent later told Penny on the body camera video.
“She asks, ‘I think you got the wrong person.’ They threatened to Tase her, and they detained her for 24 hours. And of course, they got the wrong individual,” Jordan said.
Court records show U.S. Marshals thought Penny was a wanted fugitive out of Oklahoma, by the name of Carole Anne Rozak, who had violated her parole on a two-decade-old warrant for non-violent crimes. But they were wrong.
Our reporting led the Office of the Inspector General to launch an investigation into Penny’s arrest.
A day after ABC15’s first investigation aired last April, prosecutors dropped the case against Penny.
A federal court audio recording from the day Penny was detained later showed even the judge questioned why Penny was arrested.
Just minutes into Penny’s initial court appearance, the federal magistrate judge asked the prosecutor, "I'd like to know why, um, this person was arrested as Ms. Rozak?"
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Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Rapp responded, “That's a fair question. Um, and one I had ... is that I've been provided some documents, um, some open-source documents that suggest that the person that they found was Carole Anne Rozak.”
A full fingerprint analysis would confirm what Penny knew all along: her fingerprints weren’t a match.
The U.S. Marshals Service acknowledged in past statements that Penny was mistakenly arrested and said it regrets any inconvenience caused to her.
The Institute for Justice is a nonprofit law firm that takes cases that have high interest to the public and they say they work to protect the Fourth Amendment.
“These are the kinds of suits that are absolutely necessary to ensure that people are able to enforce their own constitutional rights, because otherwise we're just at the mercy of the government,” said Avelar.
Avelar said the false arrest was traumatic for Penny, including when she was detained and was strip-searched three times.
Penny has sold her home and moved out of state, but her location was not shared.
“The goal of this lawsuit is accountability,” said Avelar, “ Accountability for the inexcusable wrongs that Penny suffered. No one should have to fear being nabbed off their driveway in their slippers by federal officers, and treated like a dangerous criminal for no reason.”
