The City of South Lake Tahoe’s City Attorney, Tom Watson, announced that a case in the Federal Court’s Eastern Division presided by the Honorable Garland Burrell resulted in a defense verdict by jury.
The case of Patrick Solomon vs. the City of South Lake Tahoe was a complaint of a false arrest when the plaintiff was arrested on January 21, 2011 for assaulting an El Dorado County Sherriff Officer Deputy Brandon Pena.
Officer Pena was a correctional officer with the El Dorado County Sherriff’s Office and knew the plaintiff during his time as an inmate within the El Dorado County jail.
During the altercation between Solomon and Pena on January 21, 2011, the plaintiff claimed that the City of South Lake Tahoe and South Lake Tahoe Police Department officers acted improperly with injuries during the arrest.
During the two day jury trial which concluded on Thursday January 22, 2015, the jury found in favor of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department officer and found no wrong doing on behalf of the City of South Lake Tahoe or the South Lake Tahoe Police Department.
“We are definitely delighted with the outcome and it vindicates the City’s position of cases being tried on their merits. This also clearly shows our Police Department is operating within the law and gratifying that a Federal jury recognized that,” said City Attorney Tom Watson.