A man who said he was jailed on a false charge of indecency with a child is suing the city of Florence and its police chief.

Manuel Ayala, 39, spent 51 days in jail after Police Chief Adam Marsh falsely charged him in a 2015 incident involving the child of a woman who Marsh was involved with romantically at the time, according to the federal lawsuit filed Monday. Ayala was released after a grand jury no-billed him in June 2015, according to the lawsuit.

Marsh declined to comment Tuesday, saying he hadn’t been served with the lawsuit. "City officials have no comment at this time," Mayor Mary Condon said Tuesday.

Richard Hoffman, Ayala’s attorney, said he sent notice about the claim in the lawsuit to the city of Florence on September 16, 2015, but said the city never responded. The city and the Police Department failed to "properly discipline, train or supervise" Marsh after becoming aware of the complaint against him, the lawsuit says.

Hoffman said it took about a year and a half to file the lawsuit because he had to track down several witnesses, including one who now lives out of the state.

The suit says Marsh persuaded a woman he was romantically involved with to sign a statement in April 2015 alleging Ayala had committed the crime. The woman went back to police a few days later to recant her allegations, Hoffman said.

"She said, ‘That’s all false. I didn’t mean to say that. It didn’t happen,’" Hoffman said. Her information was never forwarded to the Williamson County district attorney before the office filed the case, Hoffman said.

"Chief Adam Marsh filed charges that he knew to be untrue with the specific intent of wrongfully incarcerating Manuel Ayala," the lawsuit says. "The arrest and incarceration was reported in news media and severely damaged the name and reputation of plaintiff," according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount in damages.

Ayala couldn’t post bail to get out of jail before the grand jury dismissed the charge because the bail was set too high, the lawsuit said. His bail was set at $20,000, according to the arrest affidavit.

As reported initially, the woman had said Ayala came into her bedroom on April 25, 2015, and got on top of her naked while her 6-year-old child was sleeping next to her, according to the arrest affidavit. She was living in the same house as Ayala at the time because she needed a place to stay, Hoffman said.

Hoffman said he is conservative and is reluctant to file claims against the police, "but this is pretty egregious."

"I talked to several witnesses and it sounded pretty bad to me," he said.

Ayala has been previously convicted in Williamson County for driving while intoxicated, driving without a license, driving without insurance, theft by check and traffic-related offenses, according to court records.