Rae v. County of Suffolk
| Citation | 693 F. Supp.2d 217 |
| Decision Date | 05 March 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 07-CV-2738 (RRM)(ARL).,07-CV-2738 (RRM)(ARL). |
| Parties | Thomas RAE, Plaintiff, v. COUNTY OF SUFFOLK, Suffolk County Police Department, Tracey Anne Barry-Rae, in her individual capacity and in her capacity as a Suffolk County Police Officer, and Patrick Stewart, in his individual capacity and in his capacity as a Suffolk County Police Officer, and George Voight, in his individual capacity and in his capacity as a Suffolk County Police Officer, and John Walters, in his individual capacity and in his capacity as a Suffolk County Police Officer, and John Does #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, in their individual capacities and in their capacities as Suffolk County Police Officers, and Richard Dormer, Suffolk County Police Commissioner, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
Richard D. Winkler, Winkler, Kurtz, Winkler & Kuhn LLP, Port Jefferson Station, NY, for Plaintiff.
Christopher A. Jeffreys, Hauppauge, NY, for Defendants.
Plaintiff Thomas Rae brings this action under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 alleging that Defendants the County of Suffolk (the "County"), the Suffolk County Police Department (the "SCPD"), Patrick Stewart, George Voight, John Does #1-5, and Richard Dormer, Suffolk County Police Commissioner (collectively, the "County Defendants"), and Tracey Anne Barry-Rae, violated his rights under the United States Constitution by falsely arresting him and maliciously prosecuting him for the alleged rape of his estranged wife, Defendant Barry-Rae.1 Plaintiff also asserts state-law claims of malicious prosecution against all Defendants, and a state-law abuse of process claims against Defendant Barry-Rae alone. Defendants Barry-Rae, Stewart, and Voight are, and were at the time of the events in question, all employees of the SCPD. The County Defendants now move for summary judgment on the grounds that (1) Plaintiff's arrest and subsequent prosecution were based on probable cause, or in the alternative, that the individual Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, (2) that Plaintiff may not present an Eighth Amendment claim in this case, and (3) that Plaintiff has not presented a valid due process claim. Defendant Barry-Rae moves for summary judgment on the grounds that (1) she was acting as a civilian at the time she complained of Plaintiff's conduct, and therefore cannot be held liable for false arrest or malicious prosecution, and (2) that Plaintiff had offered no evidence to show that she made her complaint for any improper reason, i.e., for any purpose other than having Plaintiff arrested for the alleged crime of rape. For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants the County Defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismisses all of the claims against them. The Court grants Defendant Barry-Rae's motion in part, dismissing Plaintiff's § 1983 claims, and declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff's state-law claims for malicious prosecution and abuse of process. These claims are therefore dismissed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c).
Defendant Tracey Ann Barry-Rae is a Police Officer in the Suffolk County Police Department. On May 6, 2006, Barry-Rae was married to the Plaintiff Thomas Rae, and both lived together in their house at 28 Andover Drive, Bohemia, New York, but the two were in the process of divorcing, and Plaintiff had moved out of the master bedroom into another bedroom in the house. On March 30, 2006, Barry-Rae secured a New York State Family Court Temporary Order of Protection against Plaintiff following an incident where she claimed they had argued, during which he pushed her down the hallway between their bedrooms, causing her to fall. Early in the morning of May 6, 2006, Plaintiff returned home, where Barry-Rae was in the master bedroom, and had sexual intercourse with Barry-Rae. The parties dispute whether that intercourse was consensual, with Plaintiff claiming that it was, and Barry-Rae claiming that she had been forcibly raped by Plaintiff.
The details of what exactly happened before, during, and after the intercourse are issues of vigorous dispute between the parties. Plaintiff claims that upon arriving home he knocked on Barry-Rae's door in order to continue a conversation about reconciliation. Barry-Rae claims that she was asleep when Plaintiff came home drunk and knocked heavily on her door while saying something about their dog, at which point she awoke and opened the door. Plaintiff claims that after talking with Barry-Rae for a short time, they became amorous. Barry-Rae, on the other hand, testified that Plaintiff immediately attempted to become intimate with her, but that she resisted his advances. It is undisputed that Plaintiff at some point left the bedroom to retrieve condoms from his truck, but Plaintiff and Barry-Rae testify differently as to exactly how this came to happen. Regardless, Plaintiff subsequently returned to the bedroom where he and Barry-Rae had sexual intercourse. After the intercourse, Plaintiff left Barry-Rae's bedroom and returned to his own, after which he exchanged several text messages with Barry-Rae:
(See Decl. of Richard D. Winkler, Esq. (Doc. No. 61) ("Winkler Deck") Ex. N.)
After Plaintiff left Barry-Rae's bedroom, she called her friend Jessica Cavolina and both have testified that Barry-Rae told Cavolina that she had been raped by Plaintiff. Barry-Rae also called Defendant SCPD Police Officer Patrick Stewart, with whom Barry-Rae shared a patrol car,3 on his cell phone, and asked him to meet her at the golf course at the nearby Island Hills Country Club. At approximately 3:30 a.m., while Plaintiff was sleeping, Barry-Rae left her house and drove to meet Stewart. Once there, she told him that she had been raped by Plaintiff, her husband. Stewart then called Defendant SCPD Sergeant George Voight, and asked him to come to the scene of the meeting with Barry-Rae. Upon arrival, Voight spoke briefly with Stewart, and then interviewed Barry-Rae, who told him that she had been raped by Plaintiff. Voight recalled that Barry-Rae was crying, visibly upset, and avoided eye contact with him. (Voight Dep. Tr. (Winkler Decl. Ex. J) at 35.) Voight determined that Barry-Rae was credible and that there was probable cause to arrest Plaintiff for rape. Voight testified that he based his determination on Barry-Rae's "emotional state, the fact that she fit into the criteria of what victims of sex offenses generally act like, the sum and substance of her details of the story of what occurred, and the fact that once we had all of that compiled together, and I believed her to be credible, and it fell into department guidelines,4 that it was an arrest situation." (Id. at 50.)
After making the determination to arrest Plaintiff, Voight called a police dispatcher over his radio and reported that he, along with Stewart and several other Police Officers, was going to Barry-Rae's residence at 28 Andover Drive to conduct the arrest of Plaintiff for rape. Barry-Rae accompanied Stewart in his patrol car (her vehicle was left at the golf course), and provided the officers with a key to the house. She did not enter the house while the other officers and Sergeant Voight conducted the arrest of Plaintiff for rape and criminal contempt for violation of the existing order of protection. Plaintiff did not resist arrest, and was transported to the Fifth Precinct, where he gave a statement to Defendant SCPD Detective John Walters, the lead detective on the investigation into the events of May 6th, describing his account of what had transpired.
Meanwhile, Barry-Rae was transported by Stewart to the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Center at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip, New York, where she underwent a rape examination by a nurse. The report of that examination, the SANE Exam Record, notes that Barry-Rae was bruised on her right arm, scratched on the lower abdomen, bruised on the inside of her left leg, bruised in two places on her mid-back, and that there were a cluster of scratches on her rear left shoulder. Barry-Rae also told the nurse that Plaintiff had grabbed her by her arms and legs while using his weight to hold her down.
Later on May 6, 2006, Barry-Rae was interviewed by SCPD Detective Fred Sommers, who subsequently prepared a sworn statement that Barry-Rae reviewed and signed in the presence of Detective Walters. At some point after the signing of this statement, Detective Walters also had the Electronic Investigations Unit of the SCPD download the text messages from both Plaintiff's and Barry-Rae's cell phones. On May 11, 2006, Detective Walters obtained a sworn statement from Jessica Cavolina in which she stated that she had received a telephone call from Barry-Rae the night of the alleged rape in which Barry-Rae, who was crying, told Cavolina that Plaintiff had raped her. A Suffolk County Grand Jury was convened to hear testimony concerning the rape and criminal contempt charges against Plaintiff, but returned a determination of "no true bill" on both charges. Plaintiff was never convicted or imprisoned as a result of the allegations of rape made by Barry-Rae with respect to the incidents of May 6, 2006.
I. Summary Judgment Standard
Summary judgment is appropriate when the pleadings, depositions, interrogatories, admissions, and affidavits demonstrate that there are...
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