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Sarasota Man Files Suit Over False Arrest

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By ANTHONY CORMIER

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: September 10, 2008

SARASOTA COUNTY - Claude DuPont has sold scrap metal for a Sarasota company for 25 years, hauling the wire around for the past few years with his dog Snoopy by his side in the truck.

But in July 2007, during a routine run to the recycle yard, the 77-year-old had to call his boss with a sad request: Come get my dog, come get my truck, I'm being arrested on a charge of selling stolen goods.

"I said to myself, 'What the hell is going on? Why should I be arrested? I didn't do anything,'" said DuPont, who had not been arrested before.

It turns out the arrest was all a mistake. The charge was dropped, but DuPont filed a lawsuit last month against a Bradenton business owner and the recycling center, accusing them of falsely reporting the crime that put him in jail for days, causing him to miss work and forcing him to hire a defense attorney.

Ron Young, the business owner who told investigators that DuPont stole $140 worth of plumbing wire, later called the state attorney's office to say they had the wrong guy.

"He should have checked it out a little bit before he jumped the gun and called the police and had me thrown in jail," DuPont said.

Young says he did nothing wrong, and was only reporting a crime to protect his interests. He says $3,000 worth of wire has been stolen from his business in the past year.

The arrest underscores the difficulty law enforcement has when trying to solve cases of stolen metal, unless the thief is caught red-handed.

Authorities say metal theft is on the rise nationwide, including New York City thieves stealing manhole covers to sell for scrap. There is no serial number or other proof that one piece of metal belonged to someone else, often leaving detectives with only weak circumstantial evidence.

In this case, a video camera at Scrap-All of Sarasota Inc. showed DuPont selling some wire, the same kind used by contractors across the area.

It was the day after Young says someone stole wire from his plumbing business, and Scrap-All owner Bill Brooks let Young know.

"When I went down there and saw the wire, it looked like my wire," Young said. "The wire was bundled the exact same way we bundle our wire."

Young called the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, which put out a warrant for DuPont's arrest. No one called DuPont, or the company he worked for.

It turned out DuPont works with wiring all the time and had permission from his boss to sell wire that day.

Young said he only found that out after running into a co-worker of DuPont's, then hearing from a clerk's office employee that it was DuPont's first arrest.

Young then called the prosecutors to have them drop the charges. Young said it is up to the sheriff's office to make sure they are arresting the right person.

"I'm not a cop," Young said. "I did 90 percent of the legwork to begin with. I don't feel like I did anything wrong."

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