Comments (1) | Add a comment
Man, jailed in 2007 robbery, settles lawsuit against police
Tools
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
A civil rights lawsuit against the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was dismissed this week after the parties reached a confidential settlement.
Joshua Donizetti filed the federal lawsuit in December 2009.
He claimed a prejudicial photo lineup caused witnesses to identify him as the man who robbed them at gunpoint in May 2007.
Because of the identifications, Donizetti spent 3½ months in the county jail.
"We're pleased to get some compensation for Mr. Donizetti for his incarceration without trial," said the man's lawyer, Ryan Alexander.
The police department's lawyer, Lyssa Anderson, could not be reached for comment.
Donizetti claimed the photo lineup was prejudicial because it included five other men who looked nothing like him.
According to a warrant for Donizetti's arrest, four people were robbed of more than $1,500 at an apartment on Karen Avenue, near Lamb Boulevard.
Police said they conducted a second photo lineup after they received information that Donizetti might not be the robber. That time, only two witnesses identified Donizetti.
The district attorney's office dropped all charges against Donizetti in November 2007, after he had missed Halloween and Thanksgiving with his two young children. He also had missed work.
"Our position was they held him for several months when witnesses were identifying somebody else," Alexander said.
Contact reporter Carri Geer Thevenot at cgeer@review journal.com or 702-384-8710.
Comments
Terms & Conditions
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The Review-Journal does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please use the Report Abuse button.
Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 24 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
So--This is what Gillespie and Roger REALLY mean when they prattle on about transparency. Reaching a confidential settlement, assures we will never know exactly how much Dumb and Dumber cost taxpayers. This is precisely the type of back scratching that makes the DA's office investigating Metro such a joke. How safe was Las Vegas for those three months that Donizetti was locked up and the real robber walked our streets? This is not the first time Metro and the DA's office have worked together to incarcerate innocent citizens. In 2002 the taxpayers were forced to pay out almost 1,000,000 to settle another false arrest incident from 1997 when five Swat officers (Bob Rogers, Jerry Montes, Mark Mills, Rick Klein and Bob Lewis) conspired to have two tourists arrested on bogus charges. NRS 200.460 False imprisonment is an unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another, and consists in confinement or detention without sufficient legal authority and carries up to 6 years prison time. However, all five of those officers still work for Metro and the DA's office lacked the courage to charge them. Any reason to think that R. and G. handled things any differently this time?