Pa. state trooper obtained arrest warrant for man who had never been in the commonwealth.
WILLIAMSPORT — A New York City man is not giving up on his effort to be compensated for the nine days he spent in jail because he was mistakenly arrested by a Pennsylvania state trooper.was stopped by state police on Interstate 80 in Union County after being clocked at more than 100 miles an hour in a rented vehicle.
Henry, a Jamaican in the country illegally, provided an altered driver’s license that contained his picture but Morgan’s identification information.Henry was the leader of a scheme that used stolen identities to create fraudulent Sprint accounts to steal $1.3 million worth of Sprint iPhones in 14 states. The counterfeit identifications were also used to receive the phones when they were delivered. The scheme, which was operated from January 2018 to July 2019, involved using stolen identities of 390 individuals with high credit scores to open Sprint accounts and order iPhones. Henry pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann in February 2022 sentenced him to 12 years in prison. The investigation in the iPhone case included a Jan. 24, 2019, incident in which Brown and another trooper followed a car driven by Henry with a co-defendant, Andrew Herdsman, as a passenger to a Spring Mills residence in Centre County. The troopers arrested Herdsman when he went to pick up a package after a FedEx driver delivered it, but Henry drove off.Brown, with the assistance of the Centre County district attorney’s office, on Feb. 1, 2019, obtained a warrant for Morgan’s arrest. Morgan contends that Brown and others did not do their due diligence to compare pictures of the two before applying for the warrant. His suit pointed out that a cloth bag recovered at the Spring Mills location contained an iPad with personal identifying information and photos of Henry. Police also had surveillance footage of Henry entering a State College motel and a Spring Mills Wal-Mart, he noted. Morgan is a 6-1, 220-pound, dark-skinned Black man, while Henry is a 5-6, 150-pound, light-skinned Black man, court documents state. Despite logs confirming Morgan was at work the day he was supposed to have been in Pennsylvania, Brown charged him with conspiracy to commit theft, identity theft and receiving stolen property in connection with the Spring Mills phone incident. Based on that warrant a New York City detective arrested Morgan at his Brooklyn home as a fugitive from justice, and he was denied bail. The warrant stated identification had been confirmed by a photograph provided by the issuing jurisdiction. Morgan, who claimed he had never been in Pennsylvania, spent nine days in jail before being released after Brown informed the Queen’s County district attorney’s office by email on March 26, 2019, that the charges had been withdrawn. Morgan filed his initial false arrest and malicious prosecution suit in 2021, followed by two amended complaints in which he added as defendants Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna, assistant district attorney Mark Smith, Spring Twp. police, Officer Luke Nelson and two John Does. Brann, in 2024, dismissed the claims against all the defendants but the county and Brown. He allowed Morgan the opportunity to file another amended complaint, which he did. The judge dismissed it in November 2024. He ruled Brown had qualified immunity from being sued despite finding he conducted a negligent investigation.“Making an based on an incomplete survey of the evidence is negligent police work and shoddy police work, but it is not police work evidencing a reckless disregard for the truth,” he concluded. The judge also denied Morgan’s claim that the county failed to train prosecutors and police officers in identifying suspects and drafting, reviewing, and ratifying legally sufficient affidavits in support of criminal complaints. Morgan appealed Brann’s decision to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel of that court denied it Jan. 12. On Friday, Morgan asked the full appeals court to vacate the panel’s decision, restore the case to the active docket and consider his appeal of Brann’s order.The modern interpretation of qualified immunity comes from a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case. It is a type of legal immunity that protects government officials from frivolous lawsuits and allows some leeway for mistakes by police officers while acting in good faith.Williamsport native John Beauge obtained a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Penn State and a master’s from Northwestern University. He was photo editor of the Daily Collegian his senior year at Penn State....
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