The Orange County Sheriff’s Department last year paid a Danville man $15,000 after he accused officers of unfairly targeting him based on his skin color, according to a lawsuit filed in court.
A sheriff’s department captain in 2011 pulled over Jamaican-American Bentley Morgan for failing to use a turn signal, then conducted a nearly month-long investigation to prove whether Morgan was actually Fidel Maragh, a man with a similar birthday wanted in Florida on a charge of cocaine possession.
The Vermont Human Rights Commission took on Morgan’s case. A settlement reached in December not only awarded Morgan monetary damages but asked the sheriff’s department to update its bias-free policing policy and train staff in “fair and impartial policing.”
The Legislature this session also passed a bill reforming state laws around racial profiling by police, after legislators learned about incidents like this one.
The incident took place June 3, 2011, at a gas station on Vermont 15 in Danville, according to court documents. As Morgan, whom court documents describe as a “very dark-skinned black male,” left the gas station, Capt. Michael Welch pulled him over for allegedly failing to use a turn signal. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department was participating in a “click it or ticket” campaign that day in Caledonia County.
As Welch inspected Morgan’s license, his police computer system found an outstanding warrant for a Florida man named Fidel Peter Maragh, who was wanted on a 1996 warrant for violating probation after he was charged with cocaine possession, court documents say.
Maragh had a similar physical build, a similar birthday and was from Jamaica. He also had a scar over his left eye, tattoos on both arms and went by the alias “Peter Paul Morgan,” according to the complaint filed in court on Morgan’s behalf.
Although the warrant said “do not arrest based on this information,” Welch proceeded to investigate Morgan, detaining him for an hour and a half for questioning.
Welch contacted state police and found out Morgan had been a U.S. citizen since 2000 and had no criminal record. Morgan showed him his Social Security card that did not match Maragh’s number, showed that he did not have tattoos or the same scar, and said he had never been to Florida, according to court documents.
After allowing Morgan to leave without issuing him a ticket, sheriff’s department employees obtained a photo and fingerprints of Maragh from Florida sheriffs.
Later that month, members of the sheriff’s department called two U.S. marshals who drove with them to Morgan’s home and workplace in Danville, where the marshals confirmed, using photographs and fingerprints, that Morgan was not Maragh.
Morgan, meanwhile, filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, alleging discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin.
The Human Rights Commission investigated and found reasonable grounds to believe the complaint. The commission twice attempted to settle the matter before going to court, but the sheriff’s office was not interested, said Karen Richards, executive director of the Human Rights Commission.
The suit was filed in September 2013 and settled in December.
In addition to $15,000 paid to Morgan, the settlement calls for Orange County Sheriff Bill Bohnyak to provide a copy of the department’s bias-free policing policy to the Human Rights Commission for review.
The sheriff’s office had adopted a anti-bias policing policy about a month before the incident, according to the complaint, but no one made sure officers read it.
As the suit was being settled, all deputies read the policy and took part in a three-hour training about bias-free policing, according to the settlement. A settlement is not an admission of guilt.
Richards on Tuesday said the Human Rights Commission has reviewed Bohnyak’s policy and found several deficiencies. Rather than making changes, however, she said she will inform them of a law passed this year about bias-free policing. That law requires all law enforcement agencies to adopt one of two statewide policies.
“It’s not that there was anything totally bad about their policy, there were just some things that could have made it better,” she said.
Richards said the case was resolved in a way that met the needs of all parties.
“Ultimately the settlement was fair and the sheriff’s office was very cooperative in working it out once the case was actually filed,” Richards said.
Bohnyak said the department has taken steps to improve its policy.
“After working with the Human Rights Commission on a allegedly bias motor vehicle stop, the Orange County Sheriff’s has completed a Fair and Impartial Policing training for all deputies,” Bohnyak said in an email Tuesday. “Our bias policing policy is in compliance with the Attorney General Office.”
