Twin to Receive $150,000 for Mistaken Identity Detention

Before they reach for their handcuffs, Ray Nugent wants every cop out there to know they’ve got the wrong guy.

He didn’t rob that bank. He has a twin brother. Honest.

Because Los Angeles County law enforcement didn’t believe him in 1993, the Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay Nugent $150,000 for wrongly putting him in jail for 13 days. The settlement brings an end to a $13-million lawsuit that Nugent filed against the county over the case of mistaken identity.

The man actually wanted by police in connection with a 1985 armed robbery of a small-town Louisiana bank is Nugent’s fraternal twin brother, Jay, who is also being sought on charges of attempted murder.

While his brother remains at large, Ray Nugent, 43, has had several run-ins with police because of the pair’s resemblance, which he contends is not that striking.

In 1988, South Pasadena police held Nugent for five hours when a routine check after a minor traffic accident revealed his brother’s arrest warrant.

After detectives discovered their mistake, they released Nugent with an apology and an FBI contact number to verify his clean record should he encounter a similar problem.

However, the telephone number did not help Nugent five years later, when sheriff’s deputies in Malibu noticed the same warrant while issuing him a parking ticket.

Despite appeals on his behalf from family in Arkansas, an Arkansas congressman and an FBI agent assisted by Nugent in the investigation of his brother, Nugent was jailed after police in Opelousas, La., requested that he be held, county court documents show.

Partially due to a mix-up in fingerprints provided by the FBI, Nugent was in jail for nine days before Opelousas police acknowledged that he was not their man, county officials said.

It took four more days before he was released.

The process “was real slow, and it should have been faster,” said Deputy County Counsel Roger Granbo.

As a result of the case, the Sheriff’s Department is reviewing its guidelines for mistaken arrests and freeing those prisoners quickly, court documents show.

Nugent’s attorney, Meir Westreich, accused sheriff’s deputies and Opelousas police of conspiring to detain his client in hopes of forcing him to give up his brother, an allegation that both agencies deny.

Nugent said he has no idea of his brother’s whereabouts. Authorities believe Jay is somewhere in the Canadian wilderness.