$100 million federal lawsuit alleges false arrest by Martin County Sheriff's Office

Will Greenlee | Treasure Coast Newspapers

MARTIN COUNTY — A local man has filed a federal lawsuit, saying he was wrongly arrested by Martin County Sheriff’s officials because of his name.

The lawsuit, a class action filing from November, is in the name of David Sosa, and states he was “arrested and jailed twice” because he shares the name with a David Sosa wanted in Harris County, Texas, after a drug conviction in 1992.

Sosa, 49, a resident of Martin County since 2014, was stopped in November 2014 by a deputy in a routine traffic stop, the lawsuit states. The deputy told Sosa there was a warrant out of Texas for him. Sosa said it wasn’t him, and the lawsuit states he was fingerprinted and detained. He was released after about three hours, the lawsuit states.

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“No one at the Martin County Sheriff’s Office created any file or made any other notation that David was not the wanted David Sosa out of Texas,” the lawsuit states.

According to the lawsuit, a deputy stopped Sosa on April 20, 2018, and the deputy researched his name and the warrant came up.

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Sosa explained he was a different Sosa than the wanted Sosa, and made the deputy aware of the prior incident and that he was released.

Sosa said he was jailed, and released on April 23.

An online search of the Martin County Clerk of the Circuit Court's Office shows no records related to David Sosa.

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Sosa, during a news conference outside the Sheriff’s Office Friday, said the warrant issue has come up before several times while he lived in Texas. He said he was held for a few hours and released.

“It kind of disappeared for a really long time, and now it’s back,” Sosa said. “I never know when this warrant’s going to pop up.”

He said he’s been pulled over for traffic violations and it hasn’t come up, and other times it has.

Attorney Randall Kallinen, of Houston, Texas, said the wanted Sosa has a different height and weight than his client. Both have the same birth month and year.

Kallinen showed documentation that appeared to support his client’s arrest in Martin County in 2018.

Sosa, who is married and has two children, said he thought about changing his name.

“I have to remind myself all the time whenever this happens to me that I did nothing wrong,” Sosa said. “It’s a little unfair that I have to go out of my way to get this fixed.”

He said he’s spent hours in handcuffs and days in jail.

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Kallinen wants steps to be taken to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

The lawsuit states Sosa brings the legal action on behalf of himself and others named David Sosa and those falsely arrested or detained in cases where the person on the warrant is different than the person detained.

The lawsuit seeks at least $100 million and for the Sheriff’s Office to create policies and procedures to verify the identity of those arrested.

Sosa said he is a mechanic who works on airplanes.

“The whole thing’s just really unbelievable,” Sosa said. “It’s just scary.”