Diaz v. Miami-Dade Cnty.

• Decision Date: 19 December 2019
• Docket Number: Case Number: 18-24919-CIV-MORENO
• Citation: 424 F.Supp.3d 1345
• Parties: Edwin DIAZ, Plaintiff, v. MIAMI-DADE COUNTY; Matthew Fryer, in His Official Capacity as Sergeant, Miami-Dade Police Department, and Howard Rosen, Individually and in His Official Capacity as Deputy Chief of Special Prosecutions, Office of the Miami-Dade State Attorney, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida

424 F.Supp.3d 1345

Edwin DIAZ, Plaintiff,

v.MIAMI-DADE COUNTY; Matthew Fryer, in His Official Capacity as Sergeant, Miami-Dade Police Department, and Howard Rosen, Individually and in His Official Capacity as Deputy Chief of Special Prosecutions, Office of the Miami-Dade State Attorney, Defendants.

Case Number: 18-24919-CIV-MORENO

United States District Court, S.D. Florida, Miami Division.

Signed December 19, 2019

Entered Docket December 20, 2019

Carlos Fernando Gonzalez, Rimon, P.C., Miami, FL, Ignacio Miguel Alvarez, Alvarez | Gonzalez| Menezes, LLP, Coral Gables, FL, for Plaintiff.

Bernard Pastor, Zachary Edward Vosseler, Miami-Dade County Attorney's Office, Miami, FL, Alexandra Christine Hayes, Lourdes Espino Wydler, Oscar Edmund Marrero, Marrero and Wydler, P.A., Coral Gables, FL, for Defendants.

ORDER GRANTING MOTIONS TO DISMISS

FEDERICO A. MORENO, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Plaintiff, Edwin Diaz, is a Miami-Dade Police Officer, who brings this case under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Defendants, Miami-Dade County, Sergeant Matthew Fryer, and Howard Rosen, the Deputy Chief of Special Prosecutions for the State Attorney's Office. Following reports of stolen monies from crime scenes, the Miami-Dade Police Department's Professional Compliance Bureau began investigating the Narcotics Bureau, where Plaintiff was assigned. The police arrested Plaintiff after a sting operation revealed missing money from a crime scene. Plaintiff's claims against Sergeant Matthew Fryer and Miami-Dade County stem from this arrest. Sergeant Fryer, however, was not the arresting officer and the Court finds he is entitled to qualified immunity even if he was a supervisor because the officers had arguable probable cause to arrest the Plaintiff. The Court also finds that Plaintiff fails to state a claim that the County had a custom or policy in violation of equal protection, because the allegations focus on this one incident that resulted in Plaintiff's arrest. The allegations simply do not amount to a pattern or practice establishing a constitutional violation or deliberate indifference.

Plaintiff's claims against Defendant Howard Rosen arise from the prosecutor's statements in a meeting with law enforcement regarding the investigation. Although the State Attorney had declined to prosecute the Plaintiff, the investigation was ongoing, and Defendant Rosen told police Plaintiff had stolen money, but there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. Rosen also called into question Plaintiff's credibility to serve as a witness in other cases. Based on these statements, Plaintiff's claim is for defamation under § 1983. The Court dismisses Plaintiff's § 1983 count against Howard Rosen because Plaintiff does not state a viable common law defamation claim under Florida law and his allegations fail to establish a constitutional injury flowing from Rosen's statements. In addition, the Court finds that Howard Rosen is shielded from this litigation by the doctrine of qualified immunity.

THIS CAUSE came before the Court upon Motions to Dismiss (D.E. 30, 31, 32) .

THE COURT has considered the motion, the responses, pertinent portions of the record, and being otherwise fully advised in the premises, it is ADJUDGED that the motions are GRANTED.

I. Background

Plaintiff, Edwin Diaz, an officer of the Miami-Dade Police Department, who at the relevant time was assigned to the Department's Narcotics Bureau, filed this suit following his February 26, 2016, arrest and release. At the time the Miami-Dade Police Department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office were investigating whether Narcotics Bureau officers were stealing money from crime scenes. Plaintiff was one of the subjects of the investigation.

Oh February 19, 2016, Defendant Sergeant Matthew Fryer prepared an affidavit in support of a search warrant for the placement of a tracking device on Plaintiff's car. Plaintiff alleges that Sergeant Fryer relied on six prior theft complaints that he knew had been investigated by the Miami-Dade Police Department's Professional Compliance Bureau. Those prior theft complaints were dismissed either because they did not occur or for lack of corroboration. The Second Amended Complaint alleges that despite this knowledge, Sergeant Fryer included those complaints in the affidavit supporting the request for the search warrant.

The search warrant resulted in no investigative leads. The Department and its investigative partner agencies then conducted a sting operation. A confidential informant contacted Officer Diaz and told him that a narcotics trafficker was at the Inn at Homestead. The purported narcotics trafficker was an undercover agent from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Officer Diaz responded with his squad and arrested the person he believed to be the suspected trafficker, seized narcotics, and U.S. currency. These items were impounded at the Miami-Dade Police Department's Property and Evidence Bureau.

Diaz left the Property and Evidence Bureau at 1:00 am after the sting operation. As he drove home, several of his fellow Miami-Dade Police Department officers stopped him. Sergeant Javier Garcia ordered Diaz out of his car. Sergeant Garcia tackled Officer Diaz to the ground and placed him in handcuffs. The officers strip-searched the Plaintiff and then took him to the Professional Compliance Bureau's offices. Plaintiff alleges the officers found no contraband on his person or in his car.

Over the next fifteen hours, the Miami-Dade officers questioned Diaz. He was handcuffed, denied food, and was not allowed a phone call. While Officer Diaz was detained, another Miami-Dade Narcotics Officer, Armando Socarras, confessed and was arrested for grand theft for the taking of $1,300 from the scene of the sting operation. The department then released Diaz.

In April 2016,¹ the State Attorney advised Miami-Dade Police that it would not pursue charges against Diaz. Defendant Howard Rosen, the Deputy Chief State Attorney, and Assistant State Attorney Jose Arrojo later attended a pre-shift roll call at the Miami-Dade Narcotics Bureau on May 6, 2016. There were approximately forty members of the Narcotics Bureau present and Defendant Rosen advised the officers that Diaz was a common denominator on numerous cases with missing money. Rosen indicated, however, that his office could not prove the case against Diaz.

The Miami-Dade Police Department removed Diaz from the Narcotics Bureau and reassigned him to the Real Time Crime Center, which he claims was an assignment to monitor security cameras.

Plaintiff's Second Amended Complaint contains five counts. Count 1 is a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim against Defendant Matthew Fryer for false arrest. It claims that Defendant Fryer had knowledge that he did not have probable cause to obtain the search warrant, but nevertheless submitted the application to the Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge. Count 2 asserts a § 1983 claim against Miami-Dade County due to the actions of the Professional Compliance Bureau, which Plaintiff claims maintained a policy of disregarding or otherwise acting with deliberate indifference towards the constitutional rights of investigative targets. Count 3 is a § 1983 claim against Deputy Chief State Attorney Howard Rosen based on his defamatory statements of Plaintiff. Count 4 is a state law claim under Florida Statute § 112.532 against Defendant Rosen for violating the Florida Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights. Finally, count 5 is a state law claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress against all Defendants.

Defendants, Miami-Dade County, Sergeant Matthew Fryer, and Deputy State Attorney Howard Rosen have filed three separate motions to dismiss.

II. Legal Standard

"To survive a motion to dismiss, plaintiffs must do more than merely state legal conclusions," instead plaintiffs must "allege some specific factual basis for those conclusions or face dismissal of their claims." Jackson v. BellSouth Telecomm. , 372 F.3d 1250, 1263 (11th Cir. 2004). When ruling on a motion to dismiss, a court must view the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and accept the plaintiff's well-pleaded facts as true. See St. Joseph's Hosp., Inc. v. Hosp. Corp. of Am. , 795 F.2d 948, 953 (11th Cir. 1986). This tenet, however, does not apply to legal conclusions. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). Moreover, "[w]hile legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual allegations." Id. at 1950. Those "[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level on the assumption that all of the complaint's allegations are true." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 545, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). In short, the complaint must not merely allege a misconduct, but must demonstrate that the pleader is entitled to relief. See Iqbal , 129 S. Ct. at 1950.

III. Legal Analysis

There are three motions to dismiss pending. The Court will first analyze the claims against Sergeant Fryer, and then the claims against Miami-Dade County. Finally, the Court will address the claims against the Deputy State Attorney Howard Rosen.

A. Claims against Sergeant Matthew Fryer

1. Count 1: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Claim against Sergeant Matthew Fryer

Diaz alleges that Sergeant Matthew Fryer is liable for his false arrest because he prepared the affidavit in support of the search warrant application a week earlier. Diaz claims his unconstitutional arrest was the culmination of a series of unconstitutional acts that Defendant Fryer set in motion. He claims that Sergeant Fryer first violated his constitutional rights when he applied for and obtained a search warrant to place a tracker on Diaz's vehicle. In the application, Sergeant Fryer provided an affidavit where he listed and described six prior theft complaints against Diaz. Sergeant Fryer allegedly omitted mention...