CRIReporter.com

Posted from: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120115/NEWS01/301160030/repossession-suit?odyssey=nav%7Chead

Three men who were charged with impersonating police officers while repossessing vehicles have filed a lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department and six officers, claiming police harassed and wrongfully arrested the men in an attempt to destroy their business.

The lawsuit, filed this week in Jefferson Circuit Court, claims police began investigating Charles Mullins and his business, U.S. Auto Recovery, in late 2009 and then wrongly arrested Mullins, Derek Denney and Jonathon Payne, while they were repossessing a vehicle on Sept. 7, 2010.

Officer Russell Carver, who is named in the lawsuit, was called to the scene because of an outstanding warrant on a woman whose car was being repossessed, according to the suit, but ignored her and became irate, “yelling and belittling” Mullins, Denney and Payne.

After talking with LMPD officials, and searching “through the law books in an attempt to charge the plaintiffs with a crime,” Carver arrested the men for impersonating a police officer, according to the suit.

On Sept. 23, 2010, after a four-day trial, a Jefferson Circuit Court jury acquitted the men.

But five days later, Mullins was arrested again as he attempted to repossess a car in the 3200 block of East Indian Trail.
Mullins was charged with impersonating a police officer, two counts of wanton endangerment and two counts of unlawful imprisonment after an officer allegedly saw him pointing a gun at two men in a Dodge Magnum that had been pulled over and blocked in by two other cars driven by men working for Mullins.

Thomas Clay, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said Mullins clearly alerted the man that he was there to repossess the car, but claims the man attempted to run over one of the people who was with Mullins, causing him to draw his gun. That case is pending.

The lawsuit alleges that officers on the scene harassed Mullins and his employees. The other officers named in the suit are Sgt. James Cirillo, Officer Joel Phillips, Officer Victor Szydlowski, Officer Shawn Hoover and Sgt. Michael King.

Claims made in filing a lawsuit present only one side of the case.

Dwight Mitchell, a spokesman with the police department, said he could not comment on pending litigation and he said the officers named in the suit also would not discuss the case.

The suit claims police knew the men worked for U.S. Auto Recovery and were intentionally trying to destroy the company.

Clay said officers viewed Mullins as an “antagonist, not complying with what police” thought he should be doing, even though he was following the law. “So they just kept arresting him.”

The suit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages and a trial by jury.