Deputy convicted
Charged with punching suspect and falsifying police report in 2014
Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Justin Lambert filed a phony report to justify his unlawful use of force in taking down David Gonzalez outside a Deerfield Beach service station in 2014, a jury determined Tuesday.
He wasn’t protecting himself from the threat posed by Gonzalez, said Assistant State Attorney Rayna Karadbil. Lambert was protecting himself from the investigation that would prove he used excessive force, she said.
The verdict was announced just after 3 p.m. in Broward Circuit Judge Daniel Casey’s courtroom.
Lambert, 38, a 15-year veteran of the Broward Sheriff’s Office until his arrest in 2015, was charged with felony battery and falsifying a police report, charges that carry a combined maximum penalty of under six years.
Casey allowed him to remain free on bond until his sentencing in late August. On two occasions, outside the presence of the jury, Casey had expressed reservations about the charge of falsifying a police report, and he repeated that stance on Tuesday even after the verdict was announced.
Gonzalez, 51 at the time, had been accused of stealing beer from the gas station convenience store on Feb. 18, 2014, but the deputies who arrived on the scene were prepared to let him go with a trespass warning, according to trial testimony.
That changed when obscenities started being hurled back and forth, according to Gonzalez. Attorneys disagree about what happened, even though it was caught on surveillance video and left Gonzalez with a swollen black eye and multiple facial fractures.
Lambert told the jury on Monday that he pushed Gonzalez twice because Gonzalez took an “aggressive” step toward him. He said he brought Lambert to the ground using the level of force he was trained to use.
Prosecutors say at least one of those “pushes” was a punch.
In closing arguments Tuesday, Lambert’s lawyer, Eric Schwartzreich, defended his conduct.
“Is he supposed to wait until he gets punched to respond with force?” Schwartzreich said. “What he did was reasonable.”
But Karadbil argued otherwise, saying Lambert’s report offered a description of events that could not be supported by the video, which emerged days after the incident when a civil attorney representing Gonzalez obtained a copy.
“What’s written in that report is not what happened,” the prosecutor said. “He knew he couldn’t write what actually happened. He couldn’t say I hit him because he mouthed off at me, to teach him a lesson.”
A charge of resisting arrest filed against Gonzalez was eventually dropped, and the criminal cases against Lambert and another deputy were opened.
A second prosecutor, Chris Killoran, highlighted footage from more than six minutes after the takedown. It appeared to show Lambert pointing at the surveillance camera.
Killoran then criticized Lambert for not obtaining the footage for use in the original case against Gonzalez.
“He knew it was there,” Killoran said. “He wanted no one to see this.”
A defense expert on the police use of force supported Lambert’s conduct after reviewing the footage.
Lambert has been suspended without pay since his arrest. A charge of falsifying a police report is also pending against Deputy Michael Manresa, who was first on the scene.
Alleged police conduct caught on video doesn’t always result in a conviction, and Lambert said when he testified Monday that he felt a body camera would have exonerated him.
In March, a Miami-Dade jury found a North Miami police officer not guilty of attempted manslaughter even after it was shown video of the target, an autistic man holding a toy truck, and his therapist, who was shot while lying down with his hands in the air. The officer told the jury he mistook the toy truck for a weapon.
In 2016, Fort Lauderdale Police Officer Victor Ramirez was found not guilty of using excessive force when he slapped a homeless man at a bus terminal in an encounter recorded by a witness. In that case, while the video had sound and depicted the loud slap, it also showed the victim apparently swatting at the officer beforehand.
But in 2012, former Broward Deputy David Wimberly was found guilty of lying on an official report about the arrest of a man at a Tamarac convenience store. Wimberley’s report claimed the suspect was boisterous and had clenched fists. The video showed otherwise.