COWBOY POLICE IN CALIFORNIA AGAIN

They lost out this time. Sadly, the taxpayer lost out too. No word of any action against the slugs concerned

In the words of his attorney, "Jason Roberts wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was home, in bed." On the night of Nov. 17, 2003, Roberts was awakened by Sacramento County sheriff's deputies pounding on his door. When he opened the door, the officers informed him that he was under arrest on suspicion of sexual battery, false imprisonment and impersonating a police officer. Roberts, who is now 28 and has no criminal record, was taken from his Fair Oaks house barefoot and in underclothes, placed in a patrol car and whisked off to the Citrus Heights police station. He gave a full statement that included a total denial of the allegations.

When asked by one of the officers officers, "What if I told you that we found your fingerprints on a victim's driver's license?" Roberts instantly but calmly replied, "Then I'd say you are lying." No charges were ever filed against Roberts. The true assailant of several women was subsequently charged, pleaded guilty and sentenced to 18 months in jail.

On April 20, 2004, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Ronald W. Tochterman ruled that Roberts was factually innocent of the crimes for which he was arrested, meaning the record of his arrest is expunged. Tochterman considered all the evidence and concluded there was no reasonable or probable cause to arrest Roberts. On Wednesday, Roberts' attorney Stewart Katz received a check for $225,000 in settlement of a federal lawsuit for false arrest against Sacramento County and the Sheriff's Department.

The department referred an inquiry and request for comment to the law firm that handled its defense of the suit. "It was an unfortunate incident for everybody involved," defense attorney Jesse Rivera said Thursday. "He was simply misidentified. And I know the county and the department wish him the best." Court records and other documents supplied by Katz give this account of events leading to Roberts' arrest:

In the early hours of Nov. 17, 2003, sheriff's Deputy Matthew Warren stopped Roberts in his pickup and gave him a fix-it ticket for having a ball trailer hitch that partially obstructed the license plate. Warren thought the truck bore some similarity to one used two nights earlier by a man posing as an off-duty officer who, in a series of separate incidents, stopped women and unsuccessfully sought sexual favors from them, then groped them. The deputy also thought there was some similarity between Roberts and the women's description of their assailant.

A photo lineup was assembled by a detective and one of the assault victims picked Roberts' driver's license photo out of the lineup. She had earlier described the assailant as between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 8 inches while Roberts is 6 feet 2. At the time of the assaults and the fix-it ticket, Roberts had a mustache and goatee, while he was clean shaven in his driver's license photo and the assailant likewise had no facial hair. Also, Roberts' truck was a different make and model than the one used by the assailant, and it had lumber racks, a ball hitch and a rear window that was not tinted, all of which distinguished it from the assailant's truck.

Based only on one victim's selection of Roberts' driver's license photo, it was decided to arrest him. The Sheriff's Department issued a news release announcing the arrest, which resulted in a Bee article, and radio and television broadcasts. Roberts "believes the department never issued a retraction or correction of this release, or took any steps to lessen its effects," according to the suit. Nor did the department ever apologize to Roberts, according to Katz.

At least one radio station and one television station in their broadcasts linked the arrest to a heroic act by Roberts the previous September that had generated two Bee articles and other publicity. Roberts was credited by El Dorado County authorities with saving the life of a woman who fell 50 feet down Horsetail Falls near Kyburz. Roberts, who was in the area hiking and witnessed the fall, raced to the bottom of the falls, dived into the water and pulled the woman, who was floating face down, to safety

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