A California lady who spent 13 days in jail final yr is suing the Los Angeles Police Division for what she stated was a wrongful arrest. In line with the lawsuit, police mistook Bethany Ok. Farber, of Calabasas, for a girl with the identical identify who had an arrest warrant.
"This was an expertise that nobody ought to undergo, particularly a regulation abiding citizen," Farber stated Tuesday at a press convention.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday, accuses the LAPD, the Los Angeles Airport Police, the Metropolis of Los Angeles and dozens of unnamed people of violating her civil rights, false arrest/imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional misery and negligence. Farber is looking for financial damages.
On April 16, 2021, Farber arrived at Los Angeles Worldwide Airport, planning to fly to Puerto Escondido, Mexico, to go to household, Farber's lawyer Rodney Diggs stated. Whereas ready at her gate, Farber was stopped and apprehended by TSA officers, who stated there was a warrant for her arrest in Texas. The lawsuit stated Farber was "in full and utter shock."
Farber, who works as a licensed aesthetician in California, was then escorted to a personal room the place she was handcuffed for greater than two hours with none meals or water, in line with the lawsuit. Officers allegedly threatened to tighten Farber's handcuffs after she requested them about what was occurring.
Throughout the interrogation, Farber allegedly instructed authorities that she'd by no means been to Texas and that she could possibly be coping with a potential id theft.
Police then arrived and arrested Farber, with out checking her driver's license or confirming her id in some other approach, the lawsuit stated. She was taken to reserving, the place the LAPD did take her photograph and fingerprint. They allegedly by no means requested for her driver's license, social safety quantity, start date or some other private data that may have confirmed her id.
Farber was held at Lynwood Ladies's Jail for 13 days. The lawsuit accuses the LAPD of holding her for a further three days after Texas courts allegedly alerted them that that they had the incorrect individual.
"It is a case of negligence at its highest degree and in addition a violation of Miss Farber's rights," her lawyer stated.
Whereas in jail, Diggs claims his consumer was topic to "issues that she might by no means have imagined." The lawsuit stated Farber was "stripped of her privateness," "noticed human feces thrown round and smeared throughout the partitions" and needed to put scorching meals beneath her clothes to maintain herself heat.
Her expertise resulted in "extreme stress, anxiousness, emotional harm, and psychological anguish," in addition to humiliation, the lawsuit stated.
Whereas she was in jail, Farber's grandmother had a stress-induced stroke, and she or he died simply days after Farber was launched. Attorneys allege that her dying was a results of studying that Farber was in jail.
"I imagine that I might have had extra time along with her if this case did not occur," she stated.
In line with Diggs, the lady who really had an arrest warrant had a recognized legal historical past — her fingerprints had been already in police databases.
"They did not do the fundamentals of their job to verify the id," Diggs stated.
When requested for remark by CBS Information, the LAPD stated it doesn't touch upon pending litigation.