Countywide : Man Sues, Claims False Imprisonment

A Newbury Park man has filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s departments in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, charging that he was falsely imprisoned for more than 22 days after sheriff’s deputies arrested him in a case of mistaken identity.

The suit, filed Monday in Superior Court, said that deputies arrested Oscar Munoz Fragoso even after he told them he was a different Oscar Fragoso than the suspect being sought in two arrest warrants.

The warrants gave conflicting descriptions of the suspect, the suit said. One identified him as 6 feet tall with blond hair and blue eyes, born Sept. 14, 1966. The other described him as a 6-foot Latino, born Sept. 16, 1966.

Oscar Munoz Fragoso is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and, according to the suit, has neither blond hair nor blue eyes.

“This is one of those ‘how can this happen to you’ kind of cases,” said Tim Camarena, an attorney for Fragoso.

The suit, which also names Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Jon Russell Smith, seeks unspecified damages for false imprisonment, violation of civil rights, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence.

Robi Klein, a risk manager for Ventura County, said he had not received a copy of the lawsuit and could not comment. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department also said the agency could not comment.

According to the lawsuit, Smith and other sheriff’s deputies arrested Fragoso at his Newbury Park home in September, 1991, on two traffic warrants issued by the Cerritos Municipal Court.

Both warrants gave a Downey address for Fragoso, and the same driver’s license and vehicle registration numbers.

Fragoso told deputies he had never lived in Downey, the suit said. And his birth date, listed on his driver’s license, was different from the one listed in the warrants.

Despite the discrepancies, Fragoso was arrested and held at the Ventura County Jail for about four days and then moved to Los Angeles County Jail for 18 days before he was taken before a judge, the suit said.