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Vera Pecaj, 40, sits in the back of a Green Oak Township Police car on Jan. 2 after an officer arrested her for resisting and obstructing arrest. She later pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge.

(Courtesy | Green Oak Township Police)

Editor's note: The video contains explicit language.

ANN ARBOR, MI -- A Brighton woman recently pleaded guilty in court to resisting arrest, but contends she shouldn't have been arrested in the first place.

Vera Pecaj, 40, was charged in January with resisting and obstructing arrest, a felony, after a run-in with Green Oak Township Police Officer Michael Jain.

Pecaj, a native of France and a teacher, was running on her regular route in Green Oak Township when Jain stopped to advise her she needed to run on the sidewalk. Pecaj admits she declined to give the officer her name and that she was upset. However, she maintains she did nothing wrong.

"I'm a citizen that respects the law. I don't go out there doing something wrong," Pecaj said. "It's humiliating to be treated that. I still believe I did nothing wrong."

Audio recording from the arrest shows her screaming and swearing for several minutes as Jain arrested her and took her to the Livingston County jail.

Green Oak Township Police Chief Jason Pless said he supports the facts as stated in the police report.

On Jan. 2, Pecaj was running on the north side of Lee Road when an officer pulled alongside her and told her to run on the sidewalk on the south side of the road.

Michigan law states pedestrians "shall not walk on main travel portions of highway" where there is a sidewalk; if there is no sidewalk, then pedestrians are to walk on the left side of the highway facing traffic.

In his report, Jain said Pecaj refused to stop and speak to him.

Jain crossed Rickett Road and then turned left onto Mission Road to wait for Pecaj, his report states. When he held up his hand to signal her to stop, he said, she repeatedly refused.

When she finally did --after Jain informed her she needed to stop or she'd go to jail -- Pecaj refused to give her name and yelled she had done nothing wrong. Pecaj turned away to keep running, and Jain grabbed her arm.

"Don't f****** touch me," Pecaj yelled, according to Jain's report.

At that point, Jain told her she was under arrest and to put her hands behind her back. Pecaj struggled, according to the report and the dash cam audio. The dash cam does not show her arrest, which was to the side of the vehicle. But the verbal exchange can be heard through the dash cam's audio.

Jain: "Put your hands behind your back."

Pecaj: "I didn't do anything. Don't f****** touch me."

Jain: "Stop. Stop right now, or you're going to ground."

Pecaj: "I'm not going to the ground. Don't f****** touch me."

She continued to yell as the officer handcuffed and placed her in the back of the SUV.

Jain stated in his report Pecaj spit on him, and she replied she attempted to spit on the ground.

At one point, she asked why Jain was arresting her. He replied he was arresting her because she refused to identify herself.

Pecaj told the officer her name once she was in the back of his police SUV.

She declined medical treatment, but said the handcuffs were hurting her wrists and continued to argue with the officer about her arrest on the way to the jail.

Pecaj's story differs. She admits to declining to give her name, swearing and being upset, but said she was running against traffic on a road with no sidewalk, and there was no reason for the officer to stop her.

She also said she did not turn and run away from the officer.

The dash-cam video only starts when he was arresting her.

"Everything happened so fast. I was upset," Pecaj said. "For me, I am convinced I didn't do anything wrong."

She said Jain hurt her wrist during the arrest and her handcuffs were too tight. In the police report, Jain said he offered to call an ambulance, which Pecaj declined, and noted upon arriving at the jail her handcuffs were not excessively tight.

She spent the weekend in jail and was charged with resisting and obstructing arrest, a felony.

On March 17, she pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge and paid $707 in fines. Pecaj said she did so at the advice of her attorney because she didn't want to deal with a possible felony conviction.

Months after the incident, Pecaj said she's scared of running and stopped running for weeks after the incident. She's since changed her route to avoid Lee Road.

"Now when I run, my stomach starts to tighten. I think about this constantly," she said. "I am for justice, and I am for what's fair for everybody. That's not what happened here."

Lindsay Knake is a cops and courts reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Follow her on twitter or contact her at 989-372-2498 or lknake@mlive.com.