In a lawsuit filed today, ACLU lawyers alleged 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 suit was filed on behalf of Valerie Rodriguez, who has worked for a nationally known financial company in Denver for seven years. When she applied for a temporary seasonal job with the Postal Service in 2005, she was rejected because a background check purportedly revealed that she had a criminal record.

“Our client immediately investigated what she knew was a terrible mistake,” said Elisa Moran, who represents Ms. 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.”

According to the lawsuit, 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,” Moran explained. “Officer Scudder searched a noncriminal 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,” Moran said. “If Officer Scudder had spent two additional minutes investigating, he would have found the eight-page-long 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.”

“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, ACLU 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 continued. “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 suit 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 continued, “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.”

According to today’s lawsuit, the false charges of assault against Ms. Rodriguez were dismissed, and she was able to get an order sealing the record of her false arrest. After a Channel 7 news investigation publicized Ms. Rodriguez’s ordeal, the Denver Police Department conducted an investigation. Officer Scudder received a written reprimand for “improper procedure.”

The ACLU’s suit, Rodriguez v. Scudder, was filed in federal district court in Denver.

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The ACLU of Colorado added two new staffers in January, hiring Development Assistant Caryn Osterman and Communications Associate Erik Maulbetsch.

Caryn will help Associate Director Mary Korch with development projects including fundraising, special events, and administration. Erik will handle internal and external communications, including press releases, event publicity, and updating the website.

Coming to the ACLU from the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, Caryn worked as a development associate. She researched and cultivated donors and assisted with the planning and execution of fundraising events and dinners. Caryn holds an RN from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and an MBA from the University of Colorado.

Erik worked previously as editor of The Yellow Scene, an arts, entertainment and news magazine covering East Boulder County and the North Metro area. He covered local and state politics, regional news, and cultural activities for the past four years. He holds a BA from Middlebury College in Vermont.

In response to a routine request for public records filed by the ACLU of Colorado, the City of Colorado Springs filed suit against the ACLU in state district court in Colorado Springs. The lawsuit asks for a ruling that the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) is not required to release the records of an Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) investigation into allegations of serious police misconduct.

"In this case a patrol officer’s narrative report suggests that a second officer, K.D. Hardy, repeatedly used his full-sized metal flashlight to brutally beat Delvikio Faulkner, African American passenger traveling in a car that was initially stopped for a minor problem with its license plate," said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. "According to the report, Officer Hardy delivered six blows from the flashlight, including three to the victim’s head. Using a large metal flashlight as an impact weapons poses a substantial risk of very serious injury and even death."

"This is not only a case about alleged police brutality and grossly excessive and unjustified force," Silverstein continued. "It may also be an example of the most vicious kind of racial profiling. The public is entitled to know how the police department discharged its duty to investigate this alleged misconduct. It is also entitled to know the findings and what discipline, if any, was imposed."

The CSPD initially responded to the ACLU request by saying that as a matter of policy it did not release IAB documents under the open records laws. In an effort to persuade CSPD officials to change their view, ACLU staff Attorney Taylor Pendergrass supplied a copy of an order issued in an ACLU case by Denver District Court Judge Catherine Lemon in December, which held that a similar policy of the Denver Police Department violated the Colorado open records laws. Judge Lemon’s ruling followed similar rulings in three additional cases in recent years holding that the Denver Police Department must release IAB files to the ACLU under the open records laws.

Last January, in response to Judge Lemon’s order, Denver officials abandoned earlier intentions to appeal and instead announced that they would revise their disclosure policies to conform with the legal analysis in Judge Lemon’s ruling.

"I hoped that sending Judge Lemon’s ruling might persuade Colorado Springs officials that they had a duty under the open records laws to share more information with the public," Pendergrass said. "On Friday I spoke with a representative of the Colorado Springs City Attorney’s Office, who said he would send certain police reports but still would withhold the IAB file. He never mentioned any intention to sue the ACLU. I was surprised when a process server arrived at our office with a lawsuit and a summons."

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