By Elisha Sauers
The Capital
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A court case in Annapolis this week may have had a connection with “America’s Most Wanted,” but you won’t find the trial coverage on prime-time TV.
Two women who worked for the show accused Joseph Christian Manriquez of snatching a purse in downtown Annapolis in 2008. City police charged him with felony theft, though the State’s Attorney’s Office decided not to prosecute.
Manriquez sued the city in Anne Arundel Circuit Court, claiming false arrest, lack of probable cause, malice and battery. He sought $2 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages.
“This was a total miscarriage of justice,” Manriquez said.
But as the two-day trial wound down Wednesday, Judge James Lombardi decided to strip the case down to just one question for the jurors: Did a city police officer commit battery?
The jury decided “no” and sided with Annapolis after 15 minutes of deliberation. Manriquez will receive no compensation.
In July 2008, the two women, a production assistant and a correspondent for “America’s Most Wanted,” decided to go for a night out downtown. The friends consolidated their things - cameras, a phone, credit cards - into one purse.
Shelaney Campbell, from Washington, D.C., and Michelle Sigona, a Calvert County resident, put the purse on top of the trunk of Sigona’s sedan, they said in court Tuesday. As they stood by the car talking, a man wearing distinctive clothing approached them.
Manriquez walked toward them, carrying a CD of his band Hard Drive. He asked the women if they wanted to be in a band because he was looking for singers. They declined, and he eventually left.
“And when that person walked away, so did the purse,” Sigona said in court.
They called 911, and Annapolis Police Officer Eric Davis arrived. They described Manriquez - wearing an embroidered long-sleeved shirt buttoned to the collar, orange or salmon pants and carrying a CD - and said he was the only one around them.
Davis testified he found Manriquez about a block away and arrested him. Police never found the purse and contents, which were worth $900.
That’s when Sigona “without any thought assumed the role of a ‘detective,’ ” according to Manriquez’s lawsuit. The complaint insinuated that the women behaved in a way influenced by their work in crime TV. Sigona and Campbell denied those accusations in court documents.
Sigona looked up cellphone records that showed someone had made calls on Campbell’s stolen phone after the theft. Sigona believed those calls could have been made by Manriquez, though his attorney, David Olslund, said his client was detained by police when the calls were made.
Sigona shared the phone records with Davis.
Manriquez said since the incident he has suffered from depression, a pain between his shoulders and an eczema flare-up on his wrists from the handcuffs. He has denied having anything to do with the theft, and said the stress of the arrest has continued to haunt him.
Gary Elson, the assistant city attorney, argued that the officer made a routine arrest with no excessive force. He questioned why Manriquez didn’t bring medical bills or doctors to testify about his injuries.
“Outrageous, outrageous,” Manriquez said when the jury announced its verdict.
Separately from the city, the two women and Manriquez reached a settlement prior to the trial, Elson said.
Copyright 2012 Capital Gazette Communications, Inc.