Couple arrested by L.A. County sheriff’s deputy win $550,000 award
A couple who alleged that they were falsely arrested and framed for drug possession were awarded $550,000 on Tuesday in a legal settlement involving a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who has been charged with perjury.
The county Board of Supervisors approved the settlement for Tatiana Lopez and Miguel Amarillas at the recommendation of the county’s attorneys, who cited the “risks and uncertainties” of fighting the couple’s civil rights lawsuit at trial.
The couple accused Deputy Francisco Enriquez, a member of a narcotics task force, of lying and planting drugs after he alleged that he had driven Lopez to a sheriff’s station and discovered several bags of methamphetamines in the patrol car after she was taken out.
Prosecutors filed criminal charges against Enriquez last year after concluding that Lopez had been driven by another deputy, not Enriquez.
Lopez said Tuesday that she was relieved the county had finally approved the settlement, saying the ordeal had taken a psychological toll on her. She said she has had trouble sleeping since the Oct. 7, 2009, incident and now views law enforcement with suspicion.
“It’s hard to trust again,” she said. “There’s no amount of money that can make up for the damage that was done.”
Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said his department is in the process of firing Enriquez, who joined the agency in 2001. Enriquez, 37, has pleaded not guilty to one count of perjury in a probable cause declaration and one count of filing a false report.
In addition to the settlement award, the county has spent more than $322,000 to fight the lawsuit, including $288,000 on lawyers’ fees, according to county records.
Lopez was a student at Cerritos College and had no criminal record when she was arrested in Downey. Amarillas, who said he once associated with a gang, had twice been incarcerated, the first time for robbery in 2000 and the second for assault in 2007, according to prison records. He worked checking cables on oil rigs for a company in Long Beach.
Enriquez wrote in his report that he noticed that Lopez was speaking rapidly and sweating, even though the night was cool. He suspected that she and Amarillas were on drugs, and the couple were taken to the sheriff’s station in separate patrol cars.
After he dropped Lopez off, Enriquez wrote, he and other deputies searched the couple’s home, where he found another bag with drugs in a bedroom dresser. The bag, he wrote, contained the same distinctive insignia as the bags found in the patrol car.
Enriquez said he gave Lopez and Amarillas a chance to provide a urine sample for a drug test, but they refused.
The couple, however, said they were never asked to take a urine test and that they had not used drugs and did not possess any. Lopez accused the deputies of trying to pressure her into saying the drugs belonged to her fiance and said a deputy threatened to have her son removed from her home.
The district attorney’s office initially declined to file charges, concluding that there was not enough evidence. But prosecutors later charged her with possession for sale of a controlled substance after deputies wrote new reports that provided more details about the night of the arrest.
Those reports were written after Lopez and her attorney met with a sheriff’s lieutenant to discuss a complaint she had filed alleging that the deputies falsely arrested her and her fiance, according to her attorney, Thomas E. Beck, who accused sheriff’s officials of pursuing the case in retaliation for her complaint.
The district attorney’s office dropped the charges against Lopez after Beck produced sheriff’s radio communications that showed that a different deputy had driven Lopez to the station.
The Sheriff’s Department told The Times in 2010 that a preliminary review of Lopez’s claims had found no dishonesty by the deputies but that the department would investigate the allegations. That subsequent investigation led to criminal charges against Enriquez.
Lopez, a caregiver, said the settlement would help pay the legal bill she still owes from her criminal case. She said the arrest and criminal charge still follow her in background checks conducted by prospective employers, and she believes that some have passed her over for jobs after seeing her criminal record.
Lopez said she could have held out for more money but felt worn down from fighting the county’s attorneys. The lawsuit, she said, was an attempt to clear her name and show other victims of law enforcement misconduct that they can stand up for themselves.
“I didn’t do this for the money,” she said. “I hope that with my story, it will encourage other people to speak up.”
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