Suit Alleges Store Bias in Response to Big Cash Payment

A Costa Mesa man from Sri Lanka who tried to pay a bill at Sears in South Coast Plaza with $5,000 in cash was stalled while employees summoned police about a “drug dealer” in the store, according to a lawsuit he has filed.

Kown Shabdeen claims in the suit filed Thursday in Orange County Superior Court that he was surrounded by three police units, questioned and searched, and then advised not to go to that Sears store again.

The suit alleges the incident happened because Shabdeen is dark-skinned and speaks with an accent.

The incident occurred in May 1995 when Shabdeen tried to pay off his Discover credit card account at Sears with $5,000 in cash and a check for $4,789, the full total of his debt, the suit claims.

That would seem to be a mundane transaction at the affluent South Coast Plaza, Shabdeen’s attorney said. However, the suit alleges, employees feigned a computer glitch to stall Shabdeen until police arrived.

“Why did they do that? And was it appropriate? I think not,” attorney John H. Kays said. “They should have been acting on common sense, but the only thing they acted on was the color of his skin.”

Store general manager Jim Chiuminatta said he was familiar with the incident but declined to discuss it in any detail.

“Because [Shabdeen] has created this litigation, I can’t say anything about it, except that it’s my understanding that we didn’t do anything wrong,” Chiuminatta said.

Chiuminatta said any other information would have to come from Costa Mesa police or attorneys for Chicago-based Sears Roebuck & Co. “It was a police matter,” Chiuminatta said. The store’s attorneys could not be reached.

Costa Mesa police said they had no information readily available on the incident.

In April, Costa Mesa Police Chief David L. Snowden publicly apologized to an African American woman who was detained at South Coast Plaza on suspicion of shoplifting.

Annie Slater, wife of retired professional football player Jackie Slater, dropped her civil rights suit after the apology and the chief’s pledge to send a memo to officers encouraging racial sensitivity.

Shabdeen’s suit does not accuse police of any wrongdoing, nor is the agency named as a defendant. Kays said officers were only acting on the information provided by the store employees.

The suit claims that police watched Shabdeen as he walked to his car and followed him off of Sears property, at the department store’s request.

The officers pulled Shabdeen over, “peppered” him with “rapid-fire” questions about dealing drugs and laundering money and then searched his car, according to the suit. Officers “began to soften their tone” when the search produced no contraband, the suit states. But, according to the suit, police then advised Shabdeen against visiting Sears again “to avoid people who call the police . . . for no obvious reason.”

Shabdeen said it was “a very unpleasant situation” but declined to discuss it Friday. His attorney described him as an articulate, well-schooled man in his 30s.

“He’s a refined, clean-cut person, and it’s hard to imagine what they were thinking,” Kays said. “It’s an embarrassment.”