A New York man claims he was just trying to do his job when he was wrongfully arrested late last month.
According to NY1, Jose Rodriguez says he approached a car that had been marked for repossession due to missed payments.
A short time later, he recalled being confronted by an off-duty New York City police sergeant who informed him the Nissan Maxima belonged to a fellow officer.
The car’s owner subsequently emerged and attempted to pay what was due on the auto loan, Rodriguez claims, adding that he told the man he could not reverse a repossession once it had started.
In response, he said he was arrested on suspicion of a felony auto theft count. The officers then allegedly removed the sedan from the tow truck ad drove it away.
During the interaction, Rodriguez claims one officer reached inside the car to grab a camera, which in turn snapped a picture of the man and uploaded the image to the cloud.
After spending nearly an entire day behind bars, reports indicate the felony was downgraded to misdemeanor counts of falsifying documents and possessing police scanners.
Nevertheless, Rodriguez maintains he is innocent of all the charges and was only arrested because he attempted to take a police officer’s vehicle. His supervisor agrees that he was wrongfully arrested.
“This is totally wrong,” Anthony Destefano said. “This should have never happened.”
As of the latest updates available, Rodriguez said his truck was still being held in an impound lot and he had not yet received property including a phone, tablet, camera and computer taken at the time of his arrest. He is reportedly considering a lawsuit against the New York Police Department.
The agency released a statement claiming that a “male victim stated to police that an unlicensed tow truck was in possession of his vehicle without authorization,” leading to the pending criminal charges against Rodriguez.
“This is a repossession, a legal repossession, from the banks, with a court order,” Destefano argued.
[Featured image: Pixabay]
