Current:Home > ScamsMan arrested in Washington state after detective made false statements gets $225,000 settlement -Elevate Capital Network
Man arrested in Washington state after detective made false statements gets $225,000 settlement
View
Date:2025-04-14 01:46:12
SEATTLE (AP) — King County will pay $225,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit brought by a Black man who was arrested on drug charges after a veteran detective made false statements to obtain a search warrant, including misidentifying him in a photo.
Detective Kathleen Decker, a now-retired 33-year veteran of the King County Sheriff’s Office, was looking for a murder weapon when she asked a Washington state judge for a warrant to search the car and apartment of Seattle resident Gizachew Wondie in 2018. At the time, federal agents were separately looking into Wondie’s possible involvement in selling drugs.
Wondie was not a suspect in the homicide, but Decker’s search warrant application said a gun he owned was the same weapon that had been used to kill a 22-year-old woman a few months earlier.
In reality, the gun was only a potential match and further testing was required to prove it. Further, Decker, who is white, falsely claimed that a different Black man pictured in an Instagram photo holding a gun was Wondie, and that Wondie had a “propensity” for violence, when he had never been accused of a violent crime.
Decker also omitted information from her search warrant application that suggested Wondie no longer possessed the gun she was looking for. During a federal court hearing about the warrant’s validity, she acknowledged some of her statements were incorrect or exaggerated, but she said she did not deliberately mislead the judge who issued the warrant.
The false and incomplete statements later forced federal prosecutors to drop drug charges against Wondie. A federal judge called her statements “reckless conduct, if not intentional acts.”
“Detectives need to be truthful, complete, and transparent in their testimony to judges reviewing search warrant applications,” Wondie’s attorney, Dan Fiorito, said in an emailed statement Tuesday. “Incorrectly portraying Mr. Wondie as a violent gang member based on an inept cross-racial identification, and exaggerating ballistics evidence to tie him to a crime he was not involved in, was reckless and a complete violation of his rights.”
The King County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately return an email seeking comment. The county did not admit liability as part of the settlement.
Two days after the judge issued the warrant, Decker had a SWAT team confront Wondie as he parked his car near Seattle Central College, where he was studying computer science. The SWAT team arrested Wondie and found drugs on him.
Investigators then questioned Wondie and learned he had another apartment, where using another search warrant they found 11,000 Xanax pills, 171 grams of cocaine, a pill press and other evidence of drug dealing.
Wondie’s defense attorneys successfully argued that without the false statements used for the first warrant, authorities would not have had probable cause to arrest Wondie or learn of the second apartment. U.S. District Judge Richard Jones threw out the evidence in the federal case, and prosecutors dropped those charges.
Decker was the sheriff’s office detective of the year in 2018. The department called her “an outright legend” in a Facebook post marking her 2020 retirement.
veryGood! (349)
Related
- Paige Bueckers vs. Hannah Hidalgo highlights women's basketball games to watch
- Major League Soccer hopes new roster rules allow teams to sign more star talent
- Vermont police now say woman’s disappearance is suspicious
- RNC Day 4: Trump to accept GOP presidential nomination as assassination attempt looms over speech
- Don't let hackers fool you with a 'scam
- Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo makes good on vow to swim in the Seine river to show its safe for the Summer Games
- 2025 MLB regular season schedule: LA Dodgers, Chicago Cubs open in Tokyo
- Bob Newhart, comedy icon and star of The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart, dies at age 94
- Questlove charts 50 years of SNL musical hits (and misses)
- Espionage trial of US journalist Evan Gershkovich in Russia reaches closing arguments
Ranking
- Hackers hit Rhode Island benefits system in major cyberattack. Personal data could be released soon
- For Catholic pilgrims, all roads lead to Indy for an old-style devotion in modern stadium setting
- Montana’s largest nursing home prepares to close following patient safety violations
- Maniac Murder Cult Leader Allegedly Plotted to Poison Kids With Candy Given Out by Santa Claus
- Small twin
- Travel Influencer Aanvi Kamdar Dead at 27 After Falling 300 Feet Into Gorge
- Foo Fighters' Citi Field concert ends early due to 'dangerous' weather: 'So disappointed'
- Usha Vance introduces RNC to husband JD Vance, who's still the most interesting person she's known
Recommendation
'No Good Deed': Who's the killer in the Netflix comedy? And will there be a Season 2?
Zach Edey injury update: Grizzlies rookie leaves game with ankle soreness after hot start
Bissell recalls more than 3.5 million steam cleaners due to burn risk
Fact check of Trump, others on Day 4 of the Republican National Convention
EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
Michael Strahan’s Daughter Isabella Strahan Celebrates Being Cancer-Free
JD Vance's mother had emotional reaction when he celebrated her 10 years of sobriety during speech
Here's who bought the record-setting Apex Stegosaurus for $45 million