Yahoo News – by Joe MandakPITTSBURGH (AP) — A man and his fiancee have sued Rent-A-Center and a western Pennsylvania police department claiming he was wrongly arrested because company employees falsely said he had a gun when they came to repossess furniture.
Tyrie Sheppard and Sade Fallin say the Rent-A-Center workers went to their home in Wilkinsburg, near Pittsburgh, on Dec. 27 to repossess a bed and refrigerator after the couple missed a payment. The couple contends they owed less than $200, missed the payment only because she gave birth to their child days before and already had a court date scheduled to resolve the matter when Rent-A-Center workers arrived.
During the confrontation, the workers called police claiming Sheppard had a gun, and he was arrested and jailed for five days on charges of simple assault, reckless endangerment, obstructing law enforcement and disorderly conduct, the lawsuit and online court records show.
The couple said the workers removed all the food from their refrigerator and left it on their kitchen floor, and that police broke down both exterior doors, leaving them with no way to secure the residence. As a result, Fallin said she spent a couple of days in a motel until she could find somewhere else to stay with the newborn and another child, who was about 18 months old.
“On top of all that, the police threatened to take the kids away if they didn’t tell them where this fictional gun was at,” their attorney Timothy O’Brien said Thursday.
Sheppard was released after Fallin posted his bail, and the charges were dismissed after Rent-A-Center workers didn’t show up to testify at three court hearings, Sheppard said at his attorney’s office Thursday. Online court documents confirm the charges were dismissed Feb. 12 after preliminary hearings were twice postponed in January.
“After searching the premises for an hour and not finding a weapon, police should have known there were a whole host of criminal charges filed that had no basis,” O’Brien said.
The information from the Rent-A-Center employees “was not truthful, and that results in malicious prosecution,” O’Brien said.
Wilkinsburg solicitor Michael Witherel declined comment, saying he’ll turn the matter over to the borough’s insurance carrier.
Xavier Dominicis, the vice president of public affairs for Plano, Texas-based Rent-A-Center, said the company doesn’t comment on litigation.
“But, broadly speaking, we do have rigorous internal guidelines involving our co-worker interactions with customers and we take seriously any claims that suggest otherwise,” Dominicis said.
O’Brien said it was illegal for police to arrest Sheppard — let alone enter the home and help the Rent-A-Center workers get in to remove the furniture.
“While the police can respond to a citizen complaint of someone having a gun, that does not justify or authorize them to break into somebody’s residence without a warrant,” O’Brien said.
“Honestly, my whole concern from the whole thing was, not only did they accuse me for having a weapon, which I didn’t … they left all of my food on my kitchen floor to rot,” Sheppard said.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/couple-sues-rent-center-police-203927108.html