A Haverstraw woman is suing the town for $1.5
million after she said she was charged with drunken driving, held for five
hours and forced to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers to get the charges
dismissed.
Dayna Lynch accused the town of false arrest,
malicious prosecution, and civil rights violations in a civil complaint filed
in U.S. District Court in White Plains. A preliminary hearing in the case that
was scheduled for Thursday was delayed until early June.
According to the complaint, Lynch was seated as a
passenger in a 2003 Audi at a gas station on Route 9W in May 2010 when officers
placed her under arrest and eventually charged her with driving while
intoxicated, unattended motor vehicle, and driving with a blood-alcohol content
of greater than 0.08 percent.
But the case was dismissed three months after her
arrest, after a video surfaced that clearly showed that Lynch’s boyfriend was
the driver, said Robert Lewis, a lawyer for Lynch.
“It’s incredible,” Lewis said. “You couldn’t ask
for a better video.”
The encounter with police began after Lynch stopped
at a Shell station with her boyfriend and two other passengers. Police officers
there apparently saw Lynch talk to other people at the gas station whom they
suspected of illegal behavior, Lewis said, prompting the officers to approach
Lynch and then arrest her.
“The officers said she needed an attitude reassessment,”
Lewis said. “Couldn’t find that in the penal law.”
Lynch was later held at the police station before
spending $5,000 defending herself in court until the charges were thrown out in
August 2010.
Lewis said that Lynch has never before been convicted
of a crime. The lawyer also said that he had turned down an offer of $15,000 to
drop the suit.
“It’s an interesting little case,” Lewis said.
Carl Sandel, a lawyer for the town, declined to
comment when reached by phone.
Had enough?
Write to the Speaker of the House, U.S.
House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 and demand federal hearings into
the police problem in America. Demand
mandatory body cameras for cops, one strike rule on abuse, and a permanent DOJ office on Police Misconduct.