By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
A Broward Sheriff’s sergeant cleared of battery and falsifying records in a controversial 2019 takedown and arrest of a black teenager amid a mob outside a Tamarac McDonalds has sued Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony and two members of his command staff.
Sgt. Gregory LaCerra alleges that Tony, Col. John Hale and Lt. Vincent Coldwell conspired to frame him. Coldwell led BSO’s internal affairs investigation of LaCerra.
Tony’s alleged motive? To win an election. The motive for Hale and Coldwell, each described in the complaint as a “glorified, self-proclaimed crony of Tony:” to advance their careers.
“Coldwell, Hale, and Tony, individually, reached an understanding that in order to protect the political career of Tony, and in an effort to ensure his election, denied plaintiff of his Fourth Amendment constitutional rights,” the complaint says. The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures.
The 25-page suit filed Thursday also accuses “officials of the Broward County State Attorney’s Office” of conspiring with the sheriff, Hale and Coldwell “to convict plaintiff of a crime they knew he did not commit.’’ Despite that allegation of criminality, no state prosecutor was named as a defendant in the civil suit nor have any prosecutors been charged with a crime.
BROWARD PROSECUTOR IMPLICATED
The complaint zeroes in on one Broward prosecutor without naming him. He is identified both as the “assistant state attorney assigned to the [LaCerra] case” and an active 2020 candidate for Broward State Attorney who ran a campaign television ad touting his stance against “bad cops.
The only prosecutor to fit that description is Assistant State Attorney Justin McCormack, who lost to Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor in 2020. McCormack departed the state attorney’s office in January and today works as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
McCormack could not be reached for comment. Sarah Schall, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said Tuesday morning, “We decline the opportunity to comment.”
“Defendants knew, including by testimony from their own use of force expert, that these assertions were unfounded, untrue, and unsupported by any facts to support further action,” the complaint says. “Nevertheless, defendants chose to cave to the court of public opinion, while Tony was running for election, and vilify plaintiff professionally and personally, crushing his professional and personal reputation and holding both plaintiff and his entire family up to public ridicule and humiliation, as well as placing their lives in danger.”
To make it happen, the complaint alleges, the defendants trumped up “false and fabricated” evidence against LaCerra.
“There was a complete and total absence of probable cause for the commencement of criminal proceedings against the plaintiff,” the complaint says.
Representing LaCerra are Fort Lauderdale attorney Tonja Haddad Coleman and Hollywood lawyer David Frankel.
THE TAKEDOWN AND ARREST
On the afternoon of April 18, 2019, LaCerra, a 24-year BSO veteran who is also vice president of Local 6020 of the International Union of Police Associations, and BSO Detective Christopher Krickovich responded to the parking lot of Tamarac Town Square Plaza, 8200 N. Pine Island Road, following a report of a large group of students fighting and damaging cars. The location was well known to the police, who had gone there more than 150 times in less than two years in response to complaints, according to the complaint.
LaCerra and Krickovich waded into a crowd of about 100, mostly students. As they moved in the crowd converged on them. Delucca Rolle, then 15, a student at J.P. Taravella High School in Coral Springs, “assaulted” LaCerra, who then “deployed his pepper spray,” according to the complaint. Video showed LaCerra pepper-sprayed Rolle in the face before knocking him to the ground.
Krickovich used “ground control techniques and distraction strikes as he was taught in BSO training” to control Rolle’s attempts to resist being handcuffed,” the complaint says. Video taken by a bystander shows Rolle’s head making contact with the pavement, but he wasn’t injured. Still, the complaint noted, the video became something of a sensation, “the subject of nationwide reports in the media, posts on social media, and fodder for the ‘talking heads’ due to the political climate.”
The next day, BSO’s lead trainer in defensive tactics, use of force and de-escalation tactics, Sgt. Melvin Murphy, met with Tony and others. “Sgt. Murphy walked everyone through the video of what transpired, and he explained his opinion as to how LaCerra and Krickovich’s use of force was completely consistent with the Sheriff’s Policy Manual and the training that BSO provides its deputies. No one present indicated a contrary opinion,” the complaint says.
On April 27, “someone posted the deputies’ home addresses on social media, and the deputies and their families had to be placed under police security/surveillance for weeks; over 100 threats against the deputies were investigated.”
Meanwhile, internal accolades for LaCerra poured in. “Hang in there my friend! There’s a lot of us on your side. Please let me know if I can do anything for you as you are well respected by your peers,” BSO Col. David Holmes texted him on May 21.
ATTORNEY CRUMP’S PRESS CONFERENCE
That changed on June 25, 2019 when nationally known civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump held a press conference and said that if LaCerra and Krickovich weren’t charged by the Fourth of July “he would be back to hold a rally,” the complaint says.
On July 3, the Broward State Attorney’s Office charged them both with battery and conspiracy to falsify records. They were suspended without pay.
The charges were the result of a conspiracy by Tony, Hale and Coldwell, the complaint says. “Knowing that Tony’s re-election campaign could ill-afford any negative publicity, [they] along with other unidentified Tony cronies at BSO, in a conspired effort to provide Tony with political cover, met and agreed that despite plaintiff having done nothing wrong,” they would violate LaCerra’s constitutional rights by helping to prosecute him.
In a move that the complaint says was “unprecedented,” Internal Affairs (IA) continued investigating LaCerra despite the ongoing criminal case.
Sgt. Coldwell later sent the IA case to BSO’s Professional Standards Committee for review without taking a statement from Rolle or giving LaCerra a Garrity warning, the complaint says. (A Garrity warning is given to police who are suspected of misconduct. It allows management to question them and requires them to answer while ensuring they are aware of their rights and that their statement is not coerced.)
On Sept. 13, 2019, BSO’s Professional Standards Committee, made up of both top-level law-enforcement officers and members of the public, recommended exoneration on all counts but one: that LaCerra had violated BSO rules by failing to immediately activate his body worn camera when he arrived on scene.
LACERRA SUSPENDED AGAIN
By the end of September, LaCerra was put back on restricted duty. But the same day, the complaint says, he received an email telling him that “the BSO executive command, largely influenced by Hale and Tony, chose to ignore LaCerra’s use of force exoneration, changed the finding to sustained, and recommended that LaCerra be given a three-day suspension without pay.”
At the same time, Krickovich was notified that his use of force exoneration was also being changed to sustained, with a recommendation that he be fired.
“During this time, Sheriff Tony was running his election campaign,” the complaint says. So was prosecutor McCormack.
Krickovich appealed his dismissal. In subsequent proceedings, Col. Hale testified that Sheriff Tony was upset that the state attorney’s office had “beat him to the punch” in filing charges. And for that reason, Tony “decided to upend decades of prior practice and deprive Detective Krickovich of the genuine opportunity to participate in the process that is afforded” cops under the Florida Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights.
In June 2020, Tony released a campaign video ad that included footage at issue in the pending criminal cases against LaCerra and Krickovich. The video’s title: “Accountable: I fired the bad cops.” McCormack aired a similar ad campaign, the complaint says.
THE FINAL BLOW
On Oct. 16, 2020, a judge dismissed LaCerra’s two criminal battery charges. The Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed that ruling in March 2022. Three months later, the prosecution dismissed the falsification of records and conspiracy to falsify records charges against both deputies.
The final blow to the notion that LaCerra was involved in wrongdoing came in December 2022 when the Administrative Appeals Board overturned Tony’s three-day suspension of LaCerra, discipline which Hale had confirmed, the complaint says. The board entered a finding of “not sustained” on the use of force violation
The complaint accuses Sheriff Tony, Hale and Coldwell of malicious prosecution, civil conspiracy, the intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation per se.
Krickovich had similar claims against the sheriff. In a footnote, LaCerra’s complaint says that Krickovich previously settled those claims.
Krickovich did not file suit against the sheriff. His claims appear to have been settled via a grievance process.
Today, both LaCerra and Krickovich are back at work at the sheriff’s office, working under the supervision of men they have sued.
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