Stevens v. Sullum
| Decision Date | 02 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:20-1911 |
| Parties | JOHN STEVENS, Plaintiff v. JESSI SULLUM, et al., Defendants |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Pennsylvania |
(JUDGE MANNION)
On October 16, 2020, Plaintiff John Stevens ("Plaintiff" or "Stevens") filed a complaint in this District, (Doc. 1), asserting various claims against Lackawanna County's District Attorney Mark Powell, Assistant District Attorney Judy Price, Detective Chris Kolcharno, Detective Michelle Mancuso (collectively, the "DA Defendants"), Jessi Sullum ("Sullum"), and Lackawanna County. Plaintiff alleges in his complaint claims for: malicious prosecution (Count I), abuse of process (Count II), false arrest (Count III), and false imprisonment (Count IV) under 42 U.S.C. §1983, conspiracy to violate his civil rights (Count V) under 42 U.S.C. §1985, and malicious prosecution (Count VI), abuse of process (Count VII), and tortious interference with contractual relations (Count VIII) under state law.1 Plaintiffthereafter filed an amended complaint on December 15, 2020 asserting the same claims. (Doc. 9).
Pending before the Court are two separate motions to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, filed on behalf of defendant Sullum, the DA Defendants, and Lackawanna County. (Docs. 11, 13). Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the non-moving party, the Court will: DENY the DA Defendants' motion to dismiss as to Counts I, III and IV; DENY defendant Sullum's motion to dismiss as to Count VI; DENY defendant Powell's motion to dismiss as to Count VIII; and GRANT the defendants' motions to dismiss as to the remaining Counts.
Plaintiff John Stevens is a chiropractor operating a practice in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania. In January 2018, defendant Sullum initiated an online conversation with Stevens through Facebook private messenger, which continued over the course of several months. On or about March 21, 2018, defendant Sullum scheduled and attended an appointmentwith Stevens for chiropractic treatment at Steven's office. Following the March 21, 2018 visit, the online conversation between the Plaintiff and Sullum continued, which Plaintiff claims became more personal and culminated in Sullum requesting a personal massage from Stevens. Although his chiropractic office was closed for the day, Stevens agreed to provide a one-on-one session to Sullum and Sullum arrived at Stevens' office around 1:00 p.m. on March 27, 2018. Plaintiff claims that "[o]nce inside Plaintiff's chiropractic office, Sullum [] asked to take clothes off," which apparently was "the second time that Sullum unilaterally mentioned taking her clothes off." After removing her clothes and lying on the massage table, Sullum allegedly "made several suggestive gestures, including touching Plaintiff's thigh," after which Sullum and Stevens engaged in sexual activities.
After leaving Stevens' office around 1:50 p.m., Sullum drove back towards her office at Mastri Law LLC and, while in route, purportedly called both her boss, attorney Dominic Mastri, and her aunt, Judge Janine Edwards, and "falsely alleged that she was sexually assaulted." According to the Plaintiff, "[s]everal hours later, Sullum contacted Defendant Detective Chris Kolcharno ... and alleged that Plaintiff 'became increasingly sexually aggressive while massaging her.'" It is further alleged that during this call with Kolcharno, Sullum claimed that Stevens "held [Sullum] down," "told her that he wanted oral sex," and pressured her to the point where Sullum performed sexual acts "to placate him." In addition, although Sullum had apparently informed Kolcharno that she had sent private messages to thePlaintiff prior to the incident, Plaintiff claims that Sullum "concealed the fact that she told Plaintiff that he was 'hot' and that Sullum repeatedly asked to take her clothes off."
On the same day of the incident, after the call between Sullum and Kolcharno, defendant Kolcharno and Deputy District Attorney Mariclare Hayes applied for a search warrant to Plaintiff's chiropractic office and served Plaintiff with a subject warrant at his home. The next day, however, Plaintiff provided copies of the messages exchanged between Plaintiff and Sullum to defendant Kolcharno and Mariclare Hayes and vehemently denied any wrongdoing, claiming instead that his relations with Sullum were consensual. According to Plaintiff, "Defendants intentionally disregarded the text/Facebook messages" between Stevens and Sullum "because it did not fit the narrative that they were trying to construct and were directed by Defendants Powell and Price to intentionally omitt [sic] the messages from all investigation reports and affidavits generated in this case."
On March 29, 2018, defendants Kolcharno and Mancuso prepared an affidavit of probable cause for Plaintiff's arrest, which Plaintiff argues improperly omitted certain exculpatory facts that were known to the DA Defendants and remained unfiled for almost eight months. During the roughly eight-month period between the incident and the date the DA Defendants filed the affidavit of probable cause, November 26, 2018, the DA Defendants conducted an investigation that the Plaintiff claims only produced "drunk messages" from Sullum to Stevens and messages in which Sullum toldPlaintiff that he was "so hot." Nevertheless, Plaintiff asserts that the defendants filed the affidavit of probable cause without making any changes to the initial draft from March 2018, "omitting Sullum's provocative exculpatory text messages to Plaintiff" and "substantial evidence of ... Sullum's[] own unreliability" after Sullum's aunt, Judge Janine Edwards, "prodded Defendants Powell and Price to continue their 'investigation.'" On November 26, 2018, a warrant was issued for Stevens' arrest, after which Stevens turned himself in to the police and was "in custody for several hours before being permitted to leave."
Eventually, Stevens' case was assigned to Deputy District Attorney Sara Varela. In notes written by Varela on January 4, 2019, the DDA stated that she had "expressed to Judy Price that she had serious issue with victim[] [Sullum's] credibility" as the District Attorney's Office had "multiple police reports documenting incidents in which victim has lied to police." Varela further indicated that defendant Price had told her that Price and defendant Powell had planned to send Sullum to a rehabilitation facility for alcoholism and PTSD so as to "explain [Sullum's] lies to the police," and that they could manufacture a diagnosis of PTSD for Sullum in order to "salvage victim['s] credibility" as Sullum had not been diagnosed with PTSD. A preliminary hearing was held on February 5, 2019, during which testimony was presented, including testimony from defendant Sullum, and the matter was "bound over for further discussion." On March 20, 2019, Plaintiff was formally charged with various counts of sexual assault. In addition, Plaintiff claimsthat defendant Powell "personally contacted the Pennsylvania Office of Enforcement and Investigation in an effort to suspend Plaintiff's chiropractic license," whereafter Plaintiff's license was eventually suspended.
On May 20, 2019, Plaintiff alleges that defendant Kolcharno interviewed Sullum's employer, Anthony Mastri, and that Mastri claimed Sullum had twice called her aunt on the day of the alleged assault and expressed interest primarily in hiring a civil attorney to sue Plaintiff for monetary damages. When Kolcharno attempted to speak with Sullum's aunt regarding this potential issue, however, Sullum's aunt allegedly "refused to speak with Detective Kolcharno." On July 21, 2019, the Lackawanna District Attorney's Office filed a motion for "nolle prosequi" dismissing the case against Plaintiff. The Plaintiff argues in his complaint, filed on October 16, 2020, that "Sullum's allegations were nothing more than a means to file a frivolous lawsuit for monetary gain" and that the DA Defendants' efforts to generate false evidence, suspend Plaintiff's chiropractic license, and prosecute Stevens while there remained clear exculpatory evidence supporting his innocence was malicious and in violation of his constitutional rights.
On December 30, 2020, the defendants filed motions to dismiss Plaintiff's §1983, §1985, and state law claims. This Court has jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§1331 and 1343, and it can exercise pendent jurisdiction over the state law claims under 28 U.S.C. §1337. Venueis proper in this district. The Court will thus turn to the merits of Plaintiff's claims.
The defendants' motions to dismiss are brought pursuant to the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 12(b)(6). This rule provides for the dismissal of a complaint, in whole or in part, if the plaintiff fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The moving party bears the burden of showing that no claim has been stated, Hedges v. United States, 404 F.3d 744, 750 (3d Cir. 2005), and dismissal is appropriate only if, accepting all of the facts alleged in the complaint as true, the plaintiff has failed to plead "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face," Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007) (). The facts alleged must be sufficient to "raise a right to relief above the speculative level." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. This requirement "calls for enough fact[s] to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence" of necessary elements of the plaintiff's cause of action. Id. at 556. Furthermore, in order to satisfy federal pleading requirements, the plaintiff must "provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief," which "requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do."...
To continue reading
Request your trial