Fontana pays nearly $900,000 for ‘psychological torture’ inflicted by police to get false confession
A man's father went out for a walk with their dog, and when the dog returned without the father, the man went to the police for help. The police decided the man killed his father, and proceeded to torture him to try to elicit a false confession. They denied him access to his medications for high blood pressure, asthma, depression, and stress.
"At one point during the interrogation, the investigators even threatened to have his pet Labrador Retriever, Margosha, euthanized as a stray, and brought the dog into the room so he could say goodbye. 'OK? Your dog’s now gone, forget about it,' said an investigator. "
Eventually he broke down and confessed, and when he tried to kill himself because he was so distraught, he was put on a 72-hour hold at a psychiatric facility. Meanwhile the police found his father, very much alive, and they still didn't tell him this.
Even then the ordeal didn't end, because police started searching for an "unknown victim" because they were so sure that he'd done something to someone.
When they finally let him go, he had to track down his dog via the dog's implanted chip, because the police just dumped it at an animal shelter.
"Perez agreed to the settlement rather than take the case to trial out of concern that a jury award could be overturned on appeal on grounds of qualified immunity for police."