Imprisoned Man Sues City Of New Haven Over Jail Time

As reported by Randall Beach of the New Haven Register

New Haven, CT:   Two years after his acquittal on a murder charge, and exactly three years after he was arrested, Ernest Pagan Tuesday saw his attorney file a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of New Haven and its police for false arrest and 13 months of pre-trial imprisonment.

The lawsuit, filed by New Haven-based lawyer Diane Polan, seeks $10 million in damages. In addition to the city, named defendants are former Police Chief Francisco Ortiz Jr., Sgt. Reginald Sutton and former police Detective Clarence Willoughby.

The 31-page lawsuit claims Sutton and Willoughby coerced witnesses to falsely implicate Pagan in the shooting death of Tony Howell and the wounding of James Brown outside Newt’s Cafe on Whalley Avenue Dec. 24, 2006.

During the trial in Superior Court, witnesses testified they did not see Pagan at the crime scene and had been pressured by the two detectives to falsely identify him as the shooter.

During an interview in Polan’s office Tuesday, Pagan, 31, recounted interrogations he underwent after he was arrested. He said that during the questioning, he was stripped naked, handcuffed to a chair and denied food and water.

Polan alleged these interrogation techniques were used on other suspects in that period. She said she had no information the techniques are still in use.

Ortiz took a new job at Yale University. Willoughby has retired.

Ortiz could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit Tuesday. But when Pagan’s earlier defense attorney made similar allegations after the trial, Ortiz said, “I would not condone misconduct or unethical practices.”

Sutton could not be reached for comment, but during Pagan’s trial testified he did not try to influence witnesses. Willoughby could not be reached Tuesday.

City spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said, “The city just received this. Therefore, we are not yet in a position to comment. We will have a response at the appropriate time.”

Looking back on the experience, Pagan said, “I was humiliated. One minute I was at work at my construction job; the next minute I was in a cell, naked, being asked about the murder of a guy I didn’t even know.”

Pagan said Willoughby and Sutton denied his requests for an attorney and a chance to make a phone call.

He said he underwent three interrogation sessions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of about two to three hours each, but “never cracked.”

He kept telling detectives that the night of the shootings he had been with his mother and sister at his mother’s house, observing Christmas Eve.

“I was just holding to the truth,” he said. “That’s all I could do.”

On the third day of questioning, Pagan said, the two detectives threatened him with physical violence if he did not tell them what they wanted to hear: to say he was at the cafe and to implicate others. But Pagan said they never hit him.

The following Monday, he was taken to court and charged with murder and attempted murder.

Unable to afford a $3 million bail, he spent the next 13 months at Walker-McDougall Correctional Institution in Suffield, awaiting trial.

“I was there with the worst of the worst,” he said. “I had to live in that situation. It was torture, the whole ordeal. I would say I’m definitely scarred.”

Since a Superior Court jury acquitted him in March 2008, Pagan has returned to his construction job and is engaged to be married.