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Can I sue for legal fees for false arrest?

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K

kerryc

Guest
Hi, thanks for this service. I have a question about legal expenses.

About 8 months ago I was arrested because of a lie that my ex-sister-in-law told. She and my brother were going through a divorce and she got restraining orders on myself and my mom (I live next door to them) because she did not want us seeing the children. This was aimed towards my brother to make his life more difficult because my mom and I were the children's only babysitters and as a result of this he could no longer use us. The restraining orders were ALL dropped and found to be baseless and they were originally granted because the judge told me that in cases involving children they always try to "err on the side of the children". It was a good 75 days before we could get our day in court to get these things dropped and during that time we were not allowed to see the children at all.

DURING this time, my sister in law MADE UP a story that I attacked one of her daughters and pulled her hair and threw her to the ground. This happened supposedly at a family event. I WAS at this family event (a 5-mile foot race) and so was this child, however we never crossed paths as I was working the event and she was running in it. I have more than a dozen witnesses that were with me OR the child the entire day that were all willing to testify to this and made depositions to that fact. The child also said that I did this thing, although she wrote me two letters apologizing for it and told me verbally on the phone and told her father that her mom put her up to it. She refused to repeat this to a lawyer or a judge though and so I was arrested, put through the criminal system and after THREE MONTHS I was able to go before a judge who through the case out in the "interest of justice".

I swear to you that every word of this is the truth and I am completely innocent of EVERYTHING this woman charged me with.

It cost me over $3000 in legal expenses, missed work (I DO get paid for my missed days but I had to take personal and vacation days to attend the four court dates I had (it was postponed three times).

Can I sue this woman to recoup my legal expenses, even though I doubt my neice would ever testify against her mother and tell the truth? Can I sue her for false arrest? I spent the day going through the system. In a jail cell, in handcuffs, the whole bit. It was outrageous when I did absolutely nothing wrong. I have NO priors or anything of the sort, not even a traffic ticket.

Is it even worth it? Please advise.
Thank you...
 


K

kerryc

Guest
State is New York

Sorry, an added note to the above - the state I am from is NEW YORK.
 
F

FKNA

Guest
You can get her for filing a false police report. As far as the rest goes, you have a case....but it's really not worth it. If you are going to persue anything, go for the filing of a false police report.
 

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