Seattle settles with Federal Way man for wrongful arrest

Published 12:15 pm Monday, November 2, 2015

The city of Seattle recently settled a lawsuit with a Federal Way man for $35,000.

Randy Leshon Stevens sued the city in December 2014 for damages after a Seattle police officer wrongfully arrested him for kidnapping, robbery and attempted human trafficking.

“Mr. Stevens is satisfied with the resolution of his claims against the city of Seattle,” said Frank Cornelius, Stevens’s attorney with Cornelius Law Firm. “We believe it is unfortunate that his claims could not have been resolved sooner, without litigation. We hope that this case will lead to investigation and procedural changes by the city of Seattle. Mr. Stevens should not have been wrongly accused and incarcerated. Mr. Stevens is looking forward to putting this awful experience behind him.”

Stevens was arrested in December 2012 after police thought he was involved in the kidnapping of a then-22-year-old woman in November 2011.

The Seattle woman went into a bar and woke up on the floor of a house in Seattle. She had no memory of what happened.

She was greeted by Tariq Shabazz, who has since been convicted, and discovered he had her cell phone and would not return it. A woman with a tan SUV showed up at the house and Shabazz ordered the victim to get into the vehicle.

The three drove around Seattle toward the Capitol Hill neighborhood until Shabazz saw a black SUV and said he thought they were the victim’s pimps and that she was probably a “good ho” and that he thought she earned “good money,” according to court documents. After threatening the victim that he was going to force her into prostitution and take her to Las Vegas, a second man got into the vehicle. Seattle police alleged that man was Stevens, which was determined later to be false.

The second man went through the victim’s purse and stole her driver’s license, passport, debit card, keys and ordered her to call her bank to verify the balance. As they were in a parking lot to get copies of the victim’s keys, the second man took out a switch blade and threatened the victim.

Fearing for her life, the woman jumped out of the moving vehicle. Although she struck the back of her head and sustained brain trauma for several weeks, the suspects fled the scene and she was able to get away.

A Seattle detective investigated the case and discovered Shabazz was her kidnapper early on in the case.

But the second male suspect’s identity was less clear. The detective tracked a telephone number he believed to be Stevens to a man named Randy Stevens, an African-American man. Because Randy Leshon Stevens, also African-American, was in the booking database, the detective prepared a photo montage to show the victim.

According to the lawsuit documents, the victim couldn’t identify Stevens as the second suspect so the detective prepared a different montage.

“Again, [the victim] did not identify Mr. Stevens as the second African-American male suspect,” the documents state.

But the detective persisted and showed the woman Stevens’s driver’s license photo and she admitted the suspect “looked like” him.

The detective prepared a probable cause statement alleging Stevens was the second suspect.

Stevens was summoned to court for the charges in January 2013 and was arraigned.

Shortly after, he was released for “lack of information regarding his involvement with the subject crimes” because the detective had not provided enough information.

Stevens was ordered to report to jail for work release.

The detective submitted an amended supplemental case investigation report that supported Stevens’s arrest and charges.

In the lawsuit, Stevens alleged the detective’s amendment included “false information and omitted information regarding his investigation.”

The telephone number was registered to a Randy Stevens but not Randy Leshon Stevens, a different middle name. The detective also did not include the victim’s failure to identify Stevens.

Yet, Stevens was booked into jail, with $500,000 bail, where he sat for seven days.

A criminal attorney had discovered he was the wrong person.

“Plaintiff Randy Leshon Stevens did not know Tariq Shabazz and never met Shabazz or had any type of interaction with Shabazz,” the documents continue.

The lawsuit listed several claims and causes of action, including violation of Stevens’s fourth, fifth, eighth and 14th amendment rights, false arrest, false imprisonment, outrageous conduct, intentional infliction of emotional distress and vicarious liability.