After a 2 day trial in the federal district court in Utica, NY, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendant police officers in a civil rights/false arrest case. This marks the second win in as many weeks for attorney, Stephen Rehfuss, in federal civil rights cases.
The plaintiff claimed that she was improperly detained by the police following the execution of an arrest warrant against her husband who had been the subject of a months long investigation into illegal drug and gun sales. The plaintiff claimed that she had a gun pointed at her head at the time of her arrest and was detained for almost 7 hours while the police applied for and executed a search warrant.
On a pretrial summary judgment motion, the court had ruled that the detention of the plaintiff was a defacto arrest and that the police officer defendants needed to show that they had probable cause for her detention. The jury returned their verdict in less than 2 hours finding that the officers had probable cause.