Case of Mistaken Identity
Posted on Sep 20, 2011 3:50pm PDT
Recently my firm was contacted by a woman that claimed the police had arrested her boyfriend. She told the attorneys at my firm that the police had arrested her boyfriend because the police believed her boyfriend had a warrant out for his arrest. The girlfriend told the attorneys at our firm that this has to be incorrect because her boyfriend has never been in trouble and therefore could not have a warrant out for his arrest. The girlfriend hired my firm to take care of the situation.
One of the attorneys from our firm went and spoke with the boyfriend, who was now our client, in jail. Our client explained that he had approached a police officer to ask the officer what he (our client) could do if he had his identity stolen. The officer asked our client what his name was. Our client told the officer and the officer ran a check on our client's name and told our client that he was under arrest because there was a warrant out for our client's arrest for violating probation. Our client tried to explain to the officer that he has never been on probation and that it could not be him. The officer told our client he needed to arrest him and would figure the situation out later. Nothing was done and our client sat in jail for one week before we were contacted by his girlfriend.
Because we take all our clients at their word, we knew something had to be done. The attorneys at Labovitz & Whiteley went to the judge and had the judge issue an order to compare our client's fingerprints against the fingerprints of the individual who had a warrant out for his arrest. After the fingerprints were taken and compared the results showed our client was not the individual who had a warrant out for his arrest.
It appears our client has the same name and date of birth as another individual. This other individual was the actual subject of the warrant. If the police officer that arrested our client would have actually listened to our client and if the officer would have finger printed our client to compare his fingerprints, our client would not have been falsely imprisoned for two weeks.
This case shows that you can never judge a book by its cover. This case also exposes a truth that most citizens our unaware of, which is innocent people get locked up.
At my firm we take every client at their word, and we will do everything within our legal power to fight for our client's rights.