Elizabeth West/Ville Platte Gazette
The lawsuits just keep coming for the City of Ville Platte and the Ville Platte Police Department since the U.S. Department of Justice found regularly arrested and held people in jail without a warrant or probable cause.
This time around, the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office and Evangeline Parish are named as defendants as well.
The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court Western District of Louisiana on March 1 on behalf of plaintiffs Christopher Dugas, Timothy Johnson, Sharonna Tezeno and Nichole Fontenot.
The plaintiffs state they experienced the illegal investigative holds that the DOJ found police and deputies used, which violated the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
According to the document, Dugas, of Lafayette, said he was accused of “taking a picture of a minor with his cell phone,” and was arrested by a police officer and “taken to the VPPD jail.”
The complaint goes on to say that “no such picture of a minor was found on the device.”
Dugas then claims that he was moved to the Evangeline Parish Jail “four or five months” after being detained by police.
According to the complaint, “EPSO officers placed him in a room of family members of the minor he was accused of taking the photographs of,” who proceeded to “physically beat and abused him in the EPSO jail.”
Dugas was allegedly “brought before a judge six months after being brought into the VPPD jail, he was offered a plea bargain for time served and a ‘pass without dismissal.’”
In regards to Johnson, of Mamou, his claim is that he was arrested by Ville Platte Police in 2013 for stealing his roommate’s television.
According to the complaint, “Johnson’s roommate informed the police that plaintiff Johnson was sleeping at the time of the incident,” however, he was held for “11 days at the VPPD without being charged.”
Tezeno, also of Mamou, claims that after witnessing a “home invasion in the course of which a firearm was discharged,” she was arrested, interrogated, and stripped of her possessions indefinitely — including a cell phone and money.
The complaint states that Tezeno was “detained, uncharged, and forced to remain in a jail cell for over 48 hours,” but she was “never charged with anything and never appeared in court for any violations arising out of this incident.”
The final plaintiff named in the complaint, Fontenot, stated that around March of 2016, “EPSO officers came to Plaintiff Fontenot’s house to arrest a male companion for an outstanding bench warrant.”
The complaint then states that “EPSO arrested the male companion” at that time, and then “returned to Plaintiff Fontenot’s home and arrested her.”
Fontenot claims that “seventy days after being arrested and not charged, Plaintiff Fontenot was brought before a judge and released from custody.”
According to complaint, the plaintiffs’ counsel are asking for “compensatory and punitive damages in favor of Plaintiffs and the other class members against Defendant for all damages sustained as a result of Defendant’s wrongdoing.”
In the complaint, detectives who ordered the arrests of the plaintiffs, the patrol officers who carried out the arrests, and those responsible for any and all control over the detainees at the Evangeline Parish Jail and those at the Ville Platte Police Jail are also being named as defendants.
The first class action lawsuit filed on behalf of plaintiffs who allege to have also experienced being detained illegally by VPPD was filed by Ville Platte attorney Jacob Fusilier on Feb. 6.