Woman sues Florida sheriff after mistaken arrest lands her in jail on Christmas

News

Woman sues Florida sheriff after mistaken arrest lands her in jail on Christmas

2024-09-20 04:06 Last Updated At：04:12

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Jennifer Heath Box had few worries as she exited her cruise ship at Fort Lauderdale’s port on Christmas Eve 2022.

The Texan and her husband had spent six days at sea celebrating with her brother, a Georgia police officer who had just completed cancer treatment. In two hours the couple had a flight home to Houston, where they would spend Christmas with their Marine son, who was leaving for a three-year deployment in Japan, and two other adult children.

But according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Thursday by Box against the Broward County Sheriff's Office, its deputies wrongly arrested her as she disembarked and then jailed her for three days, subjecting her to a body cavity search and blasting her cell with death metal music and freezing air.

Deputies accused the 50-year-old financial systems administrator of being a much younger woman with a similar name who was wanted in Harris County, Texas, for felony child endangerment. Harris County had mistakenly put Box's photo on its warrant, but none of the other information matched.

“I’ve never done anything to where I would find myself on the other side of bars," Box said at a Thursday press conference near Port Everglades, Florida. "It was really difficult for me because I had to call my kids and tell them that I wasn’t going to be there” for Christmas.

Box said while being booked, a male inmate tried to enter her cell several times, which she called “terrifying.” She said even after Harris County told Broward they had the wrong woman in custody, she wasn’t released for another day and missed her son's departure.

“It was humiliating, degrading,” Box said of her treatment.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office issued a statement Thursday saying while it “sympathizes” with Box, the department and deputies Peter Peraza and Monica Jean did nothing wrong. It blames the situation on its Texas counterparts.

“The BSO deputy (Peraza) followed the appropriate protocols in handling this matter, and after receiving confirmation of the Harris County warrant, arrested Ms. Box,” the statement said. “Had it not been for the arrest warrant filed by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Customs and Border Patrol would not have flagged Ms. Box, BSO would not have been notified and she would not have been arrested.”

The groundwork for Box’s mistaken arrest was laid when she boarded the ship nearly a week earlier. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol conducts background checks on cruise passengers and matched her to the Harris County warrant. When her ship returned, she was already targeted for arrest.

Border Patrol officers stopped Box after she scanned her ID to leave the ship and summoned Peraza and Jean.

While it was Box's photo on the warrant, she and her attorneys say the deputies and later their supervisors refused to acknowledge several obvious discrepancies. Box’s middle and last name were not the same as those on the warrant. She is also 23 years older and 5 inches (13 centimeters) taller than the real suspect and has different colored eyes, hair and skin tone.

Charges against the real suspect were dropped days later by Harris County prosecutors, who called the case “weak.”

Box's attorney, Jared McClain of the nonprofit Institute for Justice, said they aren't suing Harris County because it simply had one employee make a mistake. He said Broward sheriff's officials, on the other hand, repeatedly refused to look at the evidence and work to correct a mistaken arrest that should have been obvious, even when contacted by Box's police officer brother.

“At none of those red flags did anyone in Broward County stop and say, ‘Maybe we’re making a mistake here. Maybe we shouldn’t put this woman in jail over Christmas.’ So that’s why we’re here in Broward County,” McClain said.

The lawsuit does not seek a specific monetary amount, but McClain said the arrest cost Box and her family thousands of dollars in additional hotel and legal costs.

Body camera video shows that Box, wearing a sweatshirt reading “Santa Baby,” and her husband are flabbergasted when told she is being arrested, but they remain calm. In return, the deputies never get physical with her or raise their voices.

Box tried to point out the warrant's discrepancies, but Peraza pointed to the matching photo and said he had to arrest her. Box removed her jewelry, handed it to her husband and then put her hands behind her back to be cuffed as passersby watched.

After Box was placed in Peraza's patrol car, the deputy again seemed to study the warrant. He opened the door, asked Box again for her full name, which she provides. She points out that both “Jennifer” and “Heath” are common names. He slowly closes the door as he again reads the warrant, but then drives her to jail.

Box says even though the jail was extremely cold, she was given a thin jail uniform while the guards wore stocking caps, heavy jackets and gloves. She said she and her cellmate slept together back-to-back to keep warm.

Finally, a day after she says Broward learned of Harris County's mistake, she was released. She said she expected an apology, but none was given.

Instead, she says, she was told “stuff happens.”

Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Edmond, Oklahoma, contributed to this report.

Wall Street soars to records in a rate-cut rally that swept the world

2024-09-20 04:07 Last Updated At：04:11

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street leapt to record highs as delayed jubilation swept across markets worldwide following the Federal Reserve’s big cut to interest rates. The S&P 500 jumped 1.7% Thursday, beating the all-time closing high it set in July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.3%, also a record, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 2.5%. The gains followed rallies for markets across Europe and Asia. Some reports on the U.S. economy helped bolster hopes that it can manage to avoid a recession as the Fed continues to cut interest rates now that inflation is receding.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is romping toward records Thursday as a delayed jubilation sweeps markets worldwide following the Federal Reserve’s big cut to interest rates.

The S&P 500 was up by 1.9% in late trading and above its all-time closing high set in July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 580 points, or 1.4%, and on track to top its record set on Monday. The Nasdaq composite was 2.8% higher with an hour left in trading.

The rally was widespread, and the company behind Olive Garden and Ruth's Chris, Darden Restaurants, helped lead the way with a jump of 7.8%. It said sales trends have been improving since a sharp step down in July, and it announced a delivery partnership with Uber.

Nvidia, meanwhile, barreled 4.6% higher and was once again the strongest force lifting the S&P 500. Lower interest rates weaken criticism by a bit that its shares and those of other influential Big Tech companies look too expensive following the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.

Wall Street's gains followed rallies for markets across Europe and Asia after the Federal Reserve delivered the first cut to interest rates in more than four years late on Wednesday.

It was a momentous move, closing the door on a run where the Fed kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the U.S. economy enough to stamp out high inflation. Now that inflation has come down from its peak two summers ago, Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed can focus more on keeping the job market solid and the economy out of a recession.

Wall Street’s initial reaction to Wednesday’s cut was a yawn, after markets had already run up for months on expectations for coming reductions to rates. Stocks ended up edging lower after swinging a few times.

“Yet we come in today and have a reversal of the reversal,” said Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG. He said he did not anticipate such a big jump for stocks on Thursday.

Some analysts said the market could be relieved that the Fed’s Powell was able to thread the needle in his press conference and suggest the deeper-than-usual cut was just a “recalibration” of policy and not an urgent move it had to take to prevent a recession.

That bolstered hopes that the Federal Reserve can successfully walk its tightrope and get inflation down to its 2% target without a recession. So too did a couple reports on the economy released Thursday. One showed fewer workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, another signal that layoffs across the country remain low.

The pressure is nevertheless still on the Fed because the job market and hiring have begun to slow under the weight of higher interest rates. Some critics say the central bank waited too long to cut rates and may have damaged the economy.

Powell, though, said Fed officials are not in “a rush to get this done” and would make decisions on policy at each successive meeting depending on what the incoming data says.

Some investment banks raised their forecasts for how much the Federal Reserve will ultimately cut interest rates, anticipating even deeper reductions than Fed officials. Forecasts released Wednesday show Fed officials expect to cut interest rates by potentially another half of a percentage point in 2024 and another full point in 2025. The federal funds rate is currently sitting in a range of 4.75% to 5%.

Lower interest rates help financial markets in two big ways. They ease the brakes off the economy by making it easier for U.S. households and businesses to borrow money, which can accelerate spending and investment. They also give a boost to prices of all kinds of investments, from gold to bonds to cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin rose above $63,500 Thursday, up from about $27,000 a year ago.

An adage suggests investors should not “fight the Fed” and instead ride the rising tide when the central bank is cutting interest rates. Wall Street was certainly doing that Thursday. But this economic cycle has continued to break conventional wisdoms after the COVID-19 pandemic created an instant recession that gave way to the worst inflation in generations.

Wall Street is worried that inflation could remain tougher to fully subdue than in the past. And while lower rates can help goose the economy, they can also give inflation more fuel.

The upcoming U.S. presidential election could also keep uncertainty reigning in the market. A fear is that both the Democrats and Republicans could push for policies that add to the U.S. government’s debt, which could keep upward pressure on interest rates regardless of the Fed’s moves.

History may also offer few clues about how things may progress given how unusual the conditions are. This looks to have higher expectations for rate cuts than past easing cycles, according to strategists at Bank of America.

The economic conditions of this cycle one may resemble 1995 a bit, but unfortunately “no great analogs exist,” the strategists led by Alex Cohen wrote in a BofA Global Research report.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 3.73% from 3.71% late Wednesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, fell to 3.60% from 3.63%.

In stock markets aboard, indexes jumped even more across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They rose 2.3% in France, 2.1% in Japan and 2% in Hong Kong.

The FTSE 100 climbed 0.9% in London after the Bank of England kept interest rates there on hold. The next big move for a central bank arrives Friday, when the Bank of Japan will announce its latest decision on interest rates.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.