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Hernando Today

Lawsuit Follows Wrong Woman's Arrest

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By KYLE MARTIN

Hernando Today

Published: September 18, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - A case of mistaken identity that led to a Spring Hill woman's arrest has resulted in a lawsuit.

Cheryl Reyes is suing Sheriff Richard Nugent after she was wrongly arrested on a warrant last September. The lawsuit asks for more than $15,000 in damages, but her lawyer wouldn't give a specific amount on Wednesday.

The source of the lawsuit actually began in Tampa, when Officer Paul Northrop performed a routine computer search on the tag attached to Reyes' car. The search through the National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) came back clean, the lawsuit states.

The officer next requested a background check on the car's registered owners, Cheryl Reyes and her husband. The search showed that Reyes had a valid license and that she had no criminal history or outstanding warrants, according to the lawsuit.

But the officer persisted, this time requesting a search for any identifiers that closely matched the target. This time he got a hit on a woman named Janeen Higdon out of Chicago, Ill. Reyes and Higdon share a birth date, but there was no other link between the two, the lawsuit states.

It's alleged that Northrop next radioed his dispatch and asked them to contact the Hernando County Sheriff's Office. He "incorrectly reported" that Janeen Higdon was using the alias Cheryl Reyes, according to the lawsuit.

When Hernando County deputies showed up at Reyes' home, she protested that they had the wrong woman. An NCIC check returned the same clean results, but a search without limitations identified Reyes as Higdon, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit puts the blame on arresting deputy Martin Claussen and says he should have known that Higdon and Reyes are not the same person for several reasons: different Social Security numbers, different physical descriptions and no record that Reyes was an alias for Higdon.

"Unless Cheryl Ann Reyes shrank two inches and gained 75 pounds, the physical descriptions did not match," the lawsuit states.

Additionally, Claussen repeated these errors on his report without double-checking the information with authorities in Illinois, the lawsuit states.

In addition to "mental anguish" and "humiliation," the lawsuit's claim for damages says Reyes suffered "bodily injury." Reye's attorney, Chip Mander wouldn't elaborate on that claim on Tuesday.

"The details will come out as the case progresses," he said.

Reyes' listed phone number is disconnected.

The sheriff's office could not comment on pending litigation, but it did provide the arrest reports concerning Reyes.

On Sept. 24, 2007, about 1 a.m., Claussen arrested Reyes at her home. Claussen notes in his report that Reyes' reaction was not the one of someone who has just learned they have a warrant out for their arrest.

" ... It was almost as if she knew what I was there for," the report states.

The next day, Sept. 25, Reyes was released by a judge because her fingerprints did not match the suspect's, Higdon.

The follow-up report by Claussen repeats the steps he took to make sure Reyes was his suspect. He states that he obtained Reyes' Social Security number at the jail and matched the physical description given to him by the jail to the person in custody.

It does not say that he compared that Social Security number to Higdon's.

Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or kmartin@hernandotoday.com.

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