A jury has decided that DeKalb County Commissioner Stan Watson must pay $150,500 for falsely accusing two women of stealing his wallet at a bar, leading to the arrest of one of the women.
Watson later found his wallet in his car. The jury reached a decision in the lawsuit Wednesday after a two-day trial.
Watson, who represents about 350,000 residents in the eastern half of the county, declined to comment about the case Thursday. Watson’s attorney didn’t return a phone message.
“My client wanted vindication and resolution,” said attorney Maurice Bernard, speaking on behalf of one of the plaintiffs, Sheneeka Bradsher. “She is relieved.”
The lawsuit arose from a late-night dispute at Tanqueray Lounge in the Decatur area on July 12, 2012.
A police report said Watson appeared intoxicated while complaining that someone had taken his wallet, which contained about $200, when he placed it on the bar to pay his tab.
Watson first asked a bartender if she had his wallet and then accused Bradsher of stealing it, the police report said. When Bradsher opened her purse to show Watson the wallet wasn’t inside, Watson claimed she had passed it to another woman, Zarinah Ali.
They started yelling at each other, with Bradsher denying Watson’s allegations and Watson insisting that one of the women had taken the wallet.
Police accused Bradsher of disorderly conduct, handcuffed her and held her for about an hour, Bernard said. The police report said they released Bradsher because they didn’t feel that arresting her was justified without also arresting Watson.
“Being locked up when you’ve never been locked up before and held in the back of a police car, that’s a pretty traumatic event,” said Charles Vrono, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “All three police officers had nothing but bad things to say about Mr. Watson” during their trial testimony.
The lawsuit accused Watson of slander, false imprisonment and battery, for allegedly poking Ali in the forehead with his finger.
The verdict calls for Bradsher to receive $80,000 and Ali to be paid $30,000. The jury also awarded $39,000 in attorney fees and $1,500 in litigation expenses.
DeKalb County didn’t spend any money defending Watson, but the county did use staff attorneys to defend itself when it was initially named as a party to the suit, said DeKalb spokesman Burke Brennan. The county was later dismissed from the case.
Watson said after the incident that he had gone to the bar to console himself over the death of his younger sister the previous weekend.
“I was a little despondent and upset over my wallet,” Watson said in a July 2012 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I have apologized to the constituents, and I will apologize to the officer.”
After police told Watson he was in no condition to drive, Watson pulled out of a parking lot in his white Mercedes, according to the police report. Two officers attempted to catch up with Watson but couldn’t locate him.
Watson returned to the parking lot about a minute later and said he would let someone else take him home, the police report said.
DeKalb police didn’t charge Watson with driving under the influence, and an outside investigation requested by Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens concluded that the state lacked evidence against Watson, in part because police didn’t ask him to undergo sobriety tests.
Vrono, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, said police gave Watson preferential treatment. A DeKalb officer asked his superiors how to handle the situation, and the officer was told to let Watson free, Vrono said.
“That’s their routine. If they have an encounter with a commissioner or public official, they have to go up the chain before they do anything,” Vrono said.
An internal DeKalb police investigation exonerated the officers, said Capt. Steven Fore.
When an officer and a lieutenant called their precinct commander for guidance, the precinct commander then told Watson he’d be arrested if he tried to drive, Fore said. The officers at the scene didn’t tell the precinct commander that Watson had previously driven from the bar.
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