South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Excessiveforce trial of K-9 deputy ends with settlement
Joshua Miller: “You’ve got a celebrity coming here and what are you going to show him? ... You want to show him the dope warehouses, with the artists that are doing really unique things.”
The position is not an unfamiliar one for Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Gerald Wengert.
Accused, again, of using excessive force against a Broward man during a traffic stop in Cooper City, Wengert — a onetime darling of the Broward Sheriff’s Office who appeared on the nationally televised reality show “Unleashed: K-9 Broward County” — was in federal court earlier this week to tell jurors that he was not an out-of-control cop.
But before the case went to the jury for deliberations — and after just two witnesses testified — the trial was halted and attorneys announced that a settlement had been reached before the third day of testimony began.
Details about the settlement have not been made public — the Broward Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the agreement had been reached, but the exact dollar amount is not a public record until it is formally approved.
“Settlements don’t concede liability,” said sheriff ’s office spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion. “There could be a number of reasons why a settlement would be an appropriate resolution.”
She added that deputies accused of crimes have their cases reviewed even when they are acquitted. While termination is a possible outcome, it’s not uncommon for an accused deputy to keep his or her job after a jury has rejected criminal charges.
The husband-and-wife legal team of recently retired Broward Circuit Judge Marc Gold and Barbara Heyer, who represented the plaintiff, declined to comment or reveal the settlement figure until it becomes a public record. Gold did the opening statement and cross-examined Wengert in the former judge’s first case since he left the bench.
Hollywood resident Kevin Buckler said Wengert pulled him over without cause on March 26, 2010, yanked him from his vehicle, smashed his face into the cardoor frame and punched him repeatedly in the face.
Buckler spent two days recovering at Hollywood Memorial Hospital.
In police reports, Wengert said Buckler was the combative one, arguing that Buckler blew smoke in his face, threw his cigarette at him, and failed to comply with lawful orders.
Buckler filed a civil rights lawsuit in Broward Circuit Court in 2013. The case was later transferred to federal court and the trial got underway on Monday.
By Wednesday, after Wengert testified, the deal was reached and the trial stopped.
Wengert’s troubles have spanned most of this decade.
He still faces a wrongful death lawsuit for the onduty killing of Steven Jerold Thompson, 26, on June 5, 2014. Wengert said he was forced to shoot Thompson after Thompson shot at him.
A Broward grand jury determined it was a lawful use of force, but the civil lawsuit is still pending.
The suit alleges that the victim — though a convicted felon from Lauderdale Lakes who had been arrested dozens of times and convicted 11 times on offenses that include burglary, grand theft and narcotics possession — was unarmed during his confrontation with Wengert and did not fit the description of iPhone robbery suspects the deputies were seeking.
In 2013 Wengert was put on trial, accused of falsifying records regarding the the December 2010 arrest of a teenage reckless driver in Cooper City.
In that case, Wengert said he saw the driver nearly striking a car on Stirling Road, leaving out the fact that his girlfriend accused the same driver of nearly colliding with her minutes earlier. Prosecutors said the girlfriend used Wengert as her “personal 911 service.” A jury saw it differently — Wengert was found not guilty after a brief trial.
Last year, two South Florida graffiti artists sued Wengert, two other deputies and the Broward Sheriff’s Office, accusing the deputy of siccing dogs on them after they surrendered when caught spraypainting freight trains in Pompano Beach.
“All of the defendant deputies made grunting and other noises to antagonize the police dog into attacking,” according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami. The dog bit one plaintiff in the shoulder, upper arm and just below his elbow in an attack he estimated lasted about two minutes.
One deputy allegedly told the dog, “Get him! Grab him! Good boy!”
Another allegedly said, “Eat, boy, eat!”
That lawsuit was settled for $175,000 last December.
No criminal charges have been filed in that case.