Man sues Virginia Beach for $200,000 after year in jail

VIRGINIA BEACH

Terence J. Darden left home on the eve of his 22nd birthday to celebrate.

By the end of the night, he'd be handcuffed and booked into the Virginia Beach Correctional Center, accused of robbing a young man at gunpoint.

Darden spent 340 days jailed without bond, walking free on March 31 after a co-defendant pleaded guilty and passed a polygraph that cleared Darden. Prosecutors dropped the charges.

Now he's suing the city for wrongful arrest and seeking $200,000 in compensation for the "extreme emotional and psychological pain as a result of the negligence of the Virginia Beach Police," according to his lawsuit, filed in the city's Circuit Court.

"It's a pretty sloppy job the police did," said his attorney, Robert H. Bennett. "This is a heck of a long time he spent in jail."

Bennett declined repeated requests to interview his client, and no one answered the door to the townhome on Pine Cone Circle where Darden lived before his arrest in April 2008. But court records cast him as a man with a checkered past who happened to pass through the wrong place at the wrong time.

"We've got a number of things, when they're all put together, will justify some sort of award for the plaintiff," Bennett said. "It's not like it's just one big thing that happened."

It was late on April 25, a Friday night, when Darden asked Marcus Lee for a ride to 7-Eleven, the lawsuit claims.

The two friends borrowed a buddy's car, a red Lexus, and left Lee's townhome in Green Run. They pulled into the lot at a 7-Eleven on Holland Road and Darden walked inside. At 12:12 a.m., he bought 50 minutes for his phone and walked back to the car, and the pair returned to Lee's townhome, according to his suit.

At 12:20 a.m., the city's 911 center received a call reporting a robbery near Green Run Elementary School. A young man told the dispatcher that five minutes earlier, he and two others had been at the school's athletic fields when a black woman pulled up in a red car. Two black men stepped from the car, robbed him at gunpoint and fled, the victim said. The school is about the midway point on the 2.5-mile route between the 7-Eleven and Lee's townhome.

About 12:45 a.m., Darden asked for a ride home. He and Lee, again in the red Lexus, drove away and turned onto Dahlia Drive, the lawsuit says.

On the way, an officer pulled them over. Darden was on probation and had a criminal record that included convictions for drug possession, petty theft and other charges. He was handcuffed.

The robbery victim was brought to the scene, saw Darden and identified him as one of the robbers. The other, he told police, was Ronald Galloway, with whom he'd played baseball and neighborhood football years earlier.

Darden was taken to jail; later that morning, police arrested Galloway.

Darden's lawsuit claims that the robbery victim identified him as he stood handcuffed and alone at the rear of a police cruiser. The method was "improper, unduly suggestive, coercive and negligently performed," and it deviated from the department's policy of showing "at least six photographs to a witness or victim," the suit says.

Officers also failed to find a black woman or gun, or the iPod that was reported stolen inside the Lexus, the lawsuit says.

Police spokesman Adam Bernstein said the department was aware of the lawsuit and that officials had begun an internal investigation. He declined further comment.

During a hearing in July, Darden's attorney, James P. Brice, told the court he had learned another young man, who looked similar to Darden, was rumored to have robbed the victim that April night. He told prosecutor Katherine E. Orsini the man's name and asked to postpone Darden's hearing so authorities could investigate.

Orsini opposed his request, and General District Judge Gene A. Woolard ordered the hearing to proceed. Moments later, the victim took the witness stand and pointed to Galloway and Darden as the robbers.

Brice said Friday that he was frustrated by officers' refusal to investigate the other man, despite being provided his name, photo and information that he had talked about the robbery. He said 7-Eleven also failed to provide the surveillance tape that would have cleared Darden.

In an interview this month at the city's jail, Galloway said that he told police from the beginning that Darden wasn't involved. He pleaded guilty in March and is awaiting transfer to a state prison to complete his five-year sentence.

Galloway said he wasn't allowed to take the polygraph that ultimately cleared Darden until he agreed to plead guilty. He initially turned down a plea offer last fall.

"I wanted to release Mr. Darden because he had nothing to do with it, but I didn't want to take the plea," he said.

Court records show Orsini notified Darden's attorney last August that Galloway had vouched for his innocence. It was unclear Friday whether authorities investigated the man who was rumored to be the other robber.

Orsini could not be reached for comment.

City Attorney Mark Stiles said the city did nothing wrong. As soon as evidence that cleared Darden was discovered, prosecutors agreed to drop his charges and Darden was released, he said. They retained the right to refile them if more evidence is discovered.

"I don't think the city or its agents were negligent in this case or did anything wrong here," Stiles said.

Shawn Day, (757) 222-5131, shawn.day@pilotonline.com