ACLU sues State Police over retaliation
Casino worker allegedly lost job after refusing role in investigation
LINCOLN — The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island on Wednesday sued the Rhode Island State Police for what they allege as police retaliation against a Twin River Casino employee for her refusal to serve as an informant in an ongoing criminal investigation, causing her to lose her job at the casino.
The ACLU contends that 25year-old Marissa Lacoste, a Warwick resident, earlier this year declined to serve as a police informant for the agency and that the State Police allegedly relied on a “dubious state law” to prohibit Lacoste from continuing her job as a waitress at the Lincoln casino after she opted to no longer aid the police in their investigation.
Lacoste on Jan. 20 was leaving the casino when two State Police detectives approached her car and demanded that she “hand over the weed,” the lawsuit indicates. Lacoste, after some conversation, turned over a bag with less than one ounce of marijuana – which is decriminalized in Rhode Island – yet police “suggested that she was in serious trouble and could go to jail,” the ACLU argues. Possession of less than one ounce of marijuana is treated as a civil traffic violation, subject to a fine.
Lacoste went with the detectives to the State Police's Lincoln Woods barracks and they allegedly told her that if she failed to assist them in an ongoing investigation at the casino, she could lose her job.
The next month, after cooperating with State Police, Lacoste informed the police that she'd no
longer be willing to assist in their investigation, the lawsuit reads. She was issued a civil summons on March 18 for possession of marijuana stemming from the initial interaction in January, the ACLU indicates. Additionally, the ACLU contends, the State Police unsuccessfully tried to revoke Lacoste's service employee license through the Department of Business Regulation. The license is a permit that's required for employees in gaming facilities.
Lacoste and a union representative on March 24 met with the casino's head of Human Resources and its Food and Beverage Director. She was informed that the citation she'd received would not affect her job at the casino, but the next time she arrived at Twin River for work, security allegedly informed her that she'd been “permanently excluded” from the casino by order of State Police, effectively terminating her from her position, the ACLU said.
Since then, the ACLU argues, State Police have “repeatedly denied” Lacoste's requests for an opportunity to be heard regarding the permanent exclusion.
The ACLU on Wednesday said that the lawsuit argues the permanent exclusion statute is “unconstitutionally vague and invites arbitrary enforcement, and denies due process to affected individuals by failing to provide them any opportunity to either be heard before being excluded or to appeal an exclusion decision.” Their lawsuit argues the State Police abused the process by seeking to revoke Lacoste's license “for an ulterior and wrongful purpose.”
Lacoste on Wednesday in a statement issued by the ACLU said: “I’ve always worked hard. I’ve always kept to myself at work and tried to do the right thing. I’ve heard about things like this happening to other people, and I would automatically think ‘That could never happen to me.’ Well it did, I was never prepared to be used and deceived by the authorities put in place to protect me.”
Lacoste declined media interviews about the case.
Lacoste's attorney, James W. Musgrave, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court. He said the legal action involves “the most essential requirement of due process: an opportunity to be heard.”
“The State Police Gaming Enforcement Unit has deprived my client and untold others of their liberty without any hearing whatsoever,” Musgrave said. “They have barred my client from her place of employment. They have not given her any chance to appeal. This conduct is all the more troubling given that it appears to have been in retaliation for her having declined to serve as an informant.”
“The Gaming Act was intended to empower the State Police to keep organized crime out of Twin River, not to prevent a waitress from coming to work because she got a traffic ticket,” Musgrave added.
Laura Meade Kirk, director of public information for the Rhode Island Department of Public Safety, said that State Police on Wednesday afternoon had not yet been formally notified of any lawsuit filed by the ACLU and declined to comment on the matter.
However, Kirk said, “the Rhode Island State Police takes seriously any allegations against the agency and its members and we will investigate thoroughly if and when any allegation is filed in this or any other matter.”
ACLU of Rhode Island Executive Director Steven Brown called the State Police allegations a “coercive practice” and “deeply troubling.”
“This raw abuse of police power to punish a person guilty of no crime should offend any fair-minded person,” Brown said. “We are hopeful that a court will correct the injustice that has been done to her.”
The lawsuit seeks a judgment be entered against the defendants for deprivation of Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, procedural due process, vagueness, abuse of process, and tortious interference with contractual relations. Lacoste also seeks compensatory damages, costs, interest, and reasonable attorneys' fees.