A Connecticut man who pleaded guilty following his arrest by New Canaan Police in 2016 has filed a lawsuit claiming that the matter amounted to a false arrest and that the officers involved violated proper procedure and his own Constitutional rights.
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed June 11 by plaintiff Scott Palmenta.
According to police, Palmenta on Nov. 16, 2016 tried to enter parked cars at Waveny. At about 4:05 p.m. that Wednesday, police arrived at Waveny and after speaking to witnesses, charged Palmenta with criminal attempt to third-degree burglary and criminal attempt to sixth-degree. Police said they stopped short of bringing more serious charges because it did not appear that he had physically entered any vehicles at the park, according to a police report.
While processing Palmenta, police found that authorities in Darien and Newtown, as well as New York State Police, were investigating car burglaries involving the same man, the report said. New Canaan police released him into the custody of Darien after he promised to appear in court on the misdemeanor charges. In March 2017, he pleaded guilty to both of them, according to Connecticut Judicial Branch records.
In a handwritten complaint that Palmenta filed with state Superior Court from MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, the plaintiff claims that officers “failed to follow the law and follow basic police procedure and protocol.”
“The defendant failed to name or find any victim of this alleged burglary and larceny attempt in his police report,” Palmenta said in the complaint. “No one at New Canaan Police Department would tell plaintiff whom he tried to burglarize. Plaintiff proclaimed his innocence and was only told by [one of the officers] he had prior record and was on parole for burglary conviction. This was a false arrest, false seizure, false imprisonment.”
A second officer’s actions were “reckless, negligent and intentional” when he pointed a “loaded handgun with his finger on the trigger at plaintiff’s head,” the complaint said.
“This reckless and dangerous action by defendant was completely uncalled for, due to the circumstances any reasonable officer would know this is wrong, and unlawful and against police training” and violated Palmenta’s Fourth Amendment rights, he said.
“Defendant could have killed plaintiff by accidentally pulling trigger and/or plaintiff could have moved wrong,” the complaint said. “At no time was plaintiff not compliant with all of this officer’s directions and had his hands on steering wheel while defendant pointed his loaded handgun at plaintiff’s head in a stopped vehicle.”
The complaint also alleges that the officers failed to read him his Miranda rights in a timely fashion and that a supervising police sergeant tried to get him to confess to crimes in order to clear his caseload. Saying the sergeant “did not adequately supervise his subordinates,” Palmenta said that defendant also is guilty “by indirect participation,” since he “would have known that his conduct was causally related to the constitutional violations committed by his subordinates.”
According to Palmenta, his Constitutional rights as outlined in the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated, and he’s claiming “police misconduct, malicious prosecution, illegal arrest, false imprisonment, obstruction of justice, defamation, libel and retaliation.”
Moynihan (who was about one year away from taking office at the time of Palmenta’s arrest) as first selectman “oversees this police department and is responsible for ensuring police officers are qualified, trained, supervised” and acting legally, the complaint said.
He’s seeking a total of $825,000 in damages and a jury trial. The civil matter has been removed to U.S. District Court, records show.
Palmenta himself was arrested by Darien Police on the same day as New Canaan Police arrested him, and ultimately was found guilty on a felony burglary charge and sentenced to seven years in jail, Judicial Branch records show.
In that case, according to Darienite, a Greenwich woman with a small child on the playground at McGuane Field happened to see a man enter her car in the parking lot. She yelled at him and confronted him, according to police. He told her he was only leaning on the car. Then he left. But she took a picture of him and took note of his license plate number. Then she gave it to police and identified Palmenta at the station. He was later arrested in New Canaan.
It wasn’t his first arrest.
In 2015, he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of possession of narcotics brought by state police, records show. He also pleaded guilty in 2007 following his arrest on felony burglary and identity theft charges, records show.
Palmenta in May filed a writ of habeas corpus that was denied. An earlier writ of habeas corpus had been withdrawn, court records show.
He has made similar filings at least three times in the past.