Wrongful arrest suit settled for $1.2M
Woman connected to Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein
The Broward Sheriff’s Office will pay $1.2 million to a woman who says she was wrongfully arrested at the behest of incarcerated Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein, a close associate of her ex-husband.
Rothstein, who is currently serving a 50-year federal prison sentence, was a major donor and fundraiser to former Sheriff Al Lamberti. An FBI investigation found that Rothstein used his influence within the department to have Marcy Romeo wrongfully arrested in 2009.
Two officers involved in Romeo’s arrest served time in federal prison for the crime. Romeo’s ex husband Douglas Bates pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a case associated with Rothstein’s in 2014. And on Monday, the federal civil trial began to determine whether the Sheriff’s Office itself was responsible for what happened to Romeo.
But the trial, which was scheduled to last until Monday next week, instead went for only 2½ days. Hours after the plaintiffs
rested their case, the parties reached a settlement.
“After more than 10 years, Marcy Romeo finally got her day in court,” said Romeo’s attorney Andrew Moss in a statement shortly after the settlement. “She told the jury her story and we were confident they were going to find in her favor. The Broward Sheriff ’s Office realized this and we came to a fair settlement.”
At issue in the trial was the degree of complicity shared by the Sheriff’s Office in the series of events that Romeo claims “fractured” her.
Romeo was arrested on the morning of Monday, June 29, 2009, as she was driving home after dropping her autistic son off at school. In the course of the arrest, Romeo said she was subjected to a sexual assault and threats against her and her children.
“It was a result of a sheriff saying ‘keep my biggest donor happy,’” Moss said of the arrest during his opening statement.
Attorneys for the Sheriff’s Office argued that the institution itself wasn’t to blame.
“They’re asking that BSO be held responsible,” David Ferguson, counsel for the Sheriff ’s Office, told the jury during opening statements. He said individuals were responsible, not the Sheriff ’s Office.
But a slew of current and former Broward Sheriff ’s officials called by the plaintiff complicated that narrative.
Romeo’s first witness was David Benjamin, a former Broward Sheriff’s commanding officer who took over $180,000 in gifts and bribes from Rothstein and was known as his “enforcer.” It was Benjamin who ordered that Romeo be arrested, and he was sentenced to five years in federal prison in 2014 for that breach of civil rights.
Then Jeffrey Poole was called to the stand. Poole was the plainclothes detective who arrested Bates on Benjamin’s orders. He was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison in 2014 for the act.
Poole had originally pulled Romeo over for driving with an expired tag, and he had placed Romeo in cuffs when he found pills inside her purse in an unlabeled bottle. Romeo had said that the medicine was for her autistic son, but Poole had a patrol car come pick her up after calling then-Lt. Benjamin, who personally ordered the arrest.
The Sheriff’s Office and Romeo dispute what happened next. Romeo says she was driven to the Weston and Davie police stations by an unidentified officer who failed to radio in her movements in contravention of department policies. At one of those stations, Romeo says two male officers strip-searched and threatened her and her young daughter.
Charges against Romeo were quickly dropped. Eighteen months after her arrest, the FBI began its investigation of the incident.
The trial also featured as witnesses three current
Sheriff’s Office officials, as well as a psychiatrist who treated Romeo, and a former sheriff’s deputy who resigned from the department because of the Rothstein scandal.
The trial was scheduled to last until next Monday, when former Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti was to take the stand.
“I hope this is one of the final chapters in the destruction Scott Rothstein left behind,” said Moss in his statement shortly after the settlement.
The Sheriff’s Office has yet to comment on the settlement. Attorneys for Romeo note that the Sheriff’s Office admitted to no liability in the settlement, and that the organization maintains that Romeo’s arrest was not illegal.