Strip Search in Fresno

Mistaken Identity
Firebaugh woman sues county after arrest, strip search at jail.
By Jerry Bier
The Fresno Bee
(Published Monday, November 3, 2003, 5:34 AM)



They knocked on Maria Munoz's door at 9:30 a.m. on a Friday and told her she was under arrest.
She was not the person they were looking for, Munoz protested. She was not Maria Herrera.

The Fresno County sheriff's deputies took her from her Firebaugh home, her hands cuffed behind her back.

She was booked into the Fresno County Jail and underwent a strip search. She was ordered to remove all her clothes, get on her hands and knees on the concrete floor, raise one leg and then the other -- then stand and spread her buttocks.

Fourteen hours after her ordeal began, she was released from custody. The trauma of the events in September 2002 left the woman, now 59 years old, sickened and in the hospital for two days.

As it turned out, Munoz, whose full name is Maria Alvarado De Munoz, was not the woman sought by the deputies, and charges against her were dismissed.

Munoz, represented by San Francisco lawyers Arturo J. Gonzalez and Robert Y. Chan, later filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the county.

Her case is scheduled for a jury trial before U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger on Tuesday.

Gonzalez, who has won a number of high-profile cases against Valley law enforcement agencies, said Munoz, who suffers from diabetes and has had two open-heart surgeries, couldn't get the deputies to listen to her.

At both the courthouse and later in the jail, "she tried in vain to tell [deputies] that they had arrested the wrong woman," Gonzalez said.

Lawyers James J. Arendt and James D. Weakley, representing the county, said the officers tell a different story.

According to court documents, deputies Gary Haslam and David Cunha went to the home in Firebaugh on Sept. 20, 2002, to serve a no-bail, felony warrant issued in 1991. They had information the home at 1940 Tri Circle was where Herrera was living.

Munoz answered the door and did not speak English, the deputies said, and identified herself as Maria Munoz -- one of the aliases used by Herrera. Munoz's drivers license and Social Security number also matched those used by Herrera.

Though Munoz insisted she was not the person they wanted, the deputies "eventually came to the reasonable belief that [Munoz] was, in fact, the person identified on the warrant" based on the information that had been provided to them, Arendt said.

The trip to the jail included "normal intake procedures" of medical screening, booking, fingerprints, photographs and classification, according to court documents filed on behalf of the deputies.

And the strip search was "in compliance with Fresno County Jail policy."

The deputies and the county shouldn't be liable for any claims of false arrest because they acted on information provided to them at the time, according to the county's attorneys.

There is also information in court documents that Munoz knew Herrera and also that the woman the deputies were searching for had at one time lived in the Munoz home.

Another claim filed against the county contends that when Munoz, who has no criminal record, protested in Spanish to a Hispanic jail employee during her incarceration, she allegedly was rebuffed with the words, "We're not in Mexico."

Neither side has budged in the yearlong legal battle and, unless there is a last-minute settlement, it will be up to a jury to decide the outcome.

The real Maria Herrera never was arrested.

The reporter can be reached at jbier [at] fresnobee.com or 441-6484.