Five people who say they were wrongfully arrested and jailed in cases of mistaken identity filed a federal lawsuit today against the city and county of Denver.
The suit was filed by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, who asserted that Denver has tolerated the mistaken arrests by failing to adopt procedures to reduce the risk. Also, the case says that Denver hasn’t implemented procedures to detect mistaken-identity arrests when they occur.
The plaintiffs are Christina Ann Fourhorn, Muse Jama, Jose Ernesto Ibarra, Dennis Michael Smith and Samuel Powell Moore.
Fourhorn, of Sterling, was arrested March 12, 2007, by Denver police, even though a computer check showed she was 90 pounds heavier and seven years older than the suspect with the same name. She spent five days in jail.
Jama, a legal resident from Somalia, was arrested on Sept. 21, 2007, and mistaken for a man with a different name. It wasn’t until a Denver prosecutor looked at the suspect’s photograph during a court appearance that Jama was released, according to the ACLU.
Ibarra was arrested on July 2, 2007, and held in the Denver County Jail for 26 days.
The suit says Denver Sheriff’s Department deputies erroneously determined that he was the same person as a suspect named Jose Cayetano Ibarra who had several outstanding warrants for his arrest, despite the fact that Jose Cayetano Ibarra had a different birthdate, a different middle name and didn’t look the same.
Smith, a 49-year-old Denver high school teacher, was arrested while visiting a former student at the jail on Jan. 19. The suit says deputies erroneously declared that Dennis was the same person as Dennis Allen Smith, someone with a different middle name, tattoos, a criminal history and an active arrest warrant. He spent the day in jail.
Moore, a 66-year-old Denver resident, has been arrested four times under an Aurora warrant for another man with a different name who had used Moore’s stolen identification card.
The ACLU says each time, Moore was transferred to Aurora Municipal Court, where he was promptly released. After one 2004 arrest, Moore obtained a copy of the court file containing notations about the error and always carried it with him, and a warning was placed in the Colorado state criminal database.
But Moore was arrested again in November and spent eight days in jail before he was released, the suit says.
City officials were not immediately available for comment on the suit.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
