Paret-Ruiz v. United States
| Decision Date | 23 September 2014 |
| Docket Number | CIV. NO.: 11-1404(SCC) |
| Parties | JORGE PARET-RUIZ, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
Plaintiff Jorge Paret-Ruiz sued the Government under the Federal Tort Claims Act ("FTCA") alleging illegal arrest and related claims. Several claims were dismissed,1 and a bench trial was held on the remaining claims on September 5, 2014.The parties filed post-trial briefs. See Docket Nos. 94, 98.
The following facts are taken from the First Circuit's opinion in Paret's criminal trial. See United States v. Paret-Ruiz, 567 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2009). Apart from the procedural history, however, these facts are not established for the purposes of the present action;2 instead, they are recited because they provide necessary context for Paret's FTCA claim.
According to the Government's case in the criminal trial, the DEA's involvement with Paret began in January 2004 when it was told by the FBI that one of its confidential informants ("CIs") had been approached by Paret in order to acquire a boat with which to import narcotics into Puerto Rico. See id. at3. On February 3, 2014, Paret met with DEA undercover Agent González and was shown a boat. See id. Paret claimed to have drug connections in Antigua and St. Maarten and indicated that he wanted to use the boat to import drugs to Puerto Rico. See id. Over the next couple months, Paret met and spoke repeatedly with Agent González and the CI. In these meetings, Paret would talk about his drug connections and his plans to bring drugs into Puerto Rico using Agent González's boat. Each time one of these plans came to fruition, though, some obstacle would appear and the delivery would fall through. At one point Paret was even given $2,000 by Agent González to take a trip to Antigua to confirm that there was cocaine there to bring back to Puerto Rico. Paret took the money, but he never took the trip.
Though the Government never found evidence of more than talking, it secured an indictment against Paret, along with two other individuals, on August 9, 2005. At trial, he was convicted of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. On appeal, the First Circuit reversed the conviction and ordered the trial court to enter a verdict of not guilty. Id. at 8. It held that while there was sufficient evidence "for a reasonable jury to find that Paret-Ruiz wanted to make a dealto transport drugs into Puerto Rico," there was insufficient evidence "for a reasonable jury to conclude that Paret-Ruiz had an agreement with anyone other than Agent González to work together to import and possess illegal drugs." Id. at 7-8.
Two witnesses testified at the bench trial: Paret and Agent González. Paret's testimony focused principally on adding context to the criminal trial's facts that he thought portrayed him in a more innocent light. Agent González's testimony, by contrast, mostly repeated his testimony from the criminal trial, but it added details about why he remains convinced that the investigation into Paret was a valid one.
Paret disputed that he had approached the CI, a man named Lázaro Herrera. Instead, Paret said that Herrera initially approached him, asking to purchase a boat that Paret had for sale. As Paret tells it, from that point forward it was Lazaro, and later Herrera and Agent González, working undercover, who broached the subject of important narcotics. In Paret's version, Herrera regularly visited Paret and offered him money to accompany him on various minor and not obviously illegal errands. Paret seems to have been happy to take Herrera's money, and he engaged with Herrera inspeculative talk about importing drugs.
Under false pretenses, says Paret, Herrera eventually brought him to Fajardo, where they met Agent González at a marina. Agent González had a vessel there, and he and Herrera insisted that Paret go aboard and test drive it. Agent González asked him to take the boat to St. Thomas to pick up drugs, and Paret said he told Agent González no.
Paret testified that he never had any intention of importing drugs, but his motives for telling Agent González about his supposed history of drug importation and drug connections is not entirely clear. Paret does claim to have suspected that Agent González and Lazaro were cops, and yet, in his own version, he played along. He admits, too, to taking the $2,000 Agent González offered him for a scouting mission, but he says he only asked for a loan and never intended to do anything that Agent González asked. Most of the rest of Paret's testimony was devoted to offering innocent explanations for incriminating recordings and to denying that he had any relationship with his co-defendants.
Agent González's testimony took the position that the investigation and arrest of Paret were valid. Agent González testified that they had identified Paret's associates—who Parettestified never existed—as his co-defendants, but he did not entirely explain how the Government had come to that conclusion. Agent González also testified that he had no knowledge of cash payments to Paret beyond the $2,000, but he could not say whether or not the FBI or Herrera personally had paid Paret more. Agent González admitted that he had never seen any drugs and that none of the talked-about transactions ever came to fruition. Still, he seemed convinced that Paret was "the real deal," a serious drug trafficker.
At the end of the day, the Government offered nothing, beyond Paret's own statements, that even hinted that he might be "the real deal." Frankly, I discredit much of Paret's self-serving testimony, but at the end of the day I think that regardless of whether or not he suspected Herrera and Agent González were cops, he was playing them. I have doubts about whether Paret had any actual intent of importing narcotics with Agent González, but he was at least willing to pretend in the hopes of getting money without working. And whatever his motivation, Paret was happy to talk about his supposed exploits. Whether or not the intent existed in Paret's mind, it is easy to understand why Agent González believed in Paret's seriousness. Put bluntly, there was no reason to think thatAgent González knew Paret was lying, much less that he was investigating Paret for any impermissible purpose.
II. Analysis
This case went to trial on three claims: false arrest and imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and a non-constitutional claim for deprivation of property. Below, I take up each of these claims in turn.
As an initial matter, the Government argues that these claims are time-barred. In fact, it originally made this argument in a motion to dismiss filed in August 2011. See Docket No. 10. Judge Gelpí, then presiding over this case, denied the Government's motion at the time, relying principally on the Supreme Court's decision in Heck v. Humphrey. Docket No. 19, at 7 (citing Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486-87 (1994)). Two and a half years after the Court's ruling, the Government decided to seek reconsideration of that Order on the grounds that a later case, Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007), required dismissal. See Docket No. 88. That motion was denied because it was extremely untimely and, moreover, because its consideration would have interfered with the trial date. See Docket Nos. 90, 92.
At trial, however, the Government continued to press its Wallace v. Kato argument, making the claim that Judge Gelpí had "overlooked or ignored" Wallace. I have gone back and looked at the Government's original motion to dismiss, and it seems that while the Government has chosen to frame its motions to reconsider Judge Gelpí's ruling in a rather accusatory way, the Government itself "overlooked or ignored" Wallace too. Certainly, that case is not cited in the Government's frankly cursory discussion of the statute of limitations issue.3 See Docket No. 10, at 9-10. It was never Judge Gelpí's duty to do the Government's work for it, finding the opinions that best made its case; that duty was the Government's alone.
As it turns out, the Government is correct that Wallace compels this Court to dismiss Plaintiffs false arrest and imprisonment claims, but not for the reason that the Government suggests. Wallace holds that false arrest and imprisonment refer to "detention without legal process." 549 U.S. at 389. Thus, no tort for false imprisonment may lie where the plaintiff was "held pursuant to such process." Id. This is because once a personis held pursuant to legal process, the proper claim is one for malicious prosecution, "which remedies detention accompanied, not by absence of legal process, but by wrongful institution of legal process." Id. at 390. Here, Paret was arrested pursuant to an arrest warrant and indictment, "a classic example of the institution of legal process." Wilkins v. DeReyes, 528 F.3d 790, 799 (10th Cir. 2008). He was thus never held without legal process, and so, under Wallace, he cannot make a claim of false arrest or imprisonment. Of course, Wallace was decided as a matter of federal common law, not Puerto Rico law. But Puerto Rico cases on false arrest and imprisonment state explicitly that these torts have a common-law origin, and in formulating their elements the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has relied on United States Supreme Court precedent. See Ayala v. San Juan Racing Co., 12 P.R. Offic. Trans. 1012, 1021-22 (1982) ().4 As such, I am sure that if faced with this precise issue,the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico would follow Wallace.5 Accordingly, I must dismiss Paret's false arrest and imprisonment claims with prejudice.6
Under Puerto Rico law, a malicious prosecution claim has four elements: (1) the defendants must have initiated a criminal action against the plaintiff; (2) the criminal action must have...
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