BY KEITH EPPS
A King George man who was erroneously arrested twice during a five-month span has filed a $5 million lawsuit against the city of Fredericksburg.
Rodney Maurice Morton, 42, filed the suit Thursday in federal court in Richmond. He is being represented by Richmond attorney Stephen W. Bricker.
Fredericksburg police spokeswoman Natatia Bledsoe said the department is aware of the lawsuit but will not comment.
Both arrests referred to in the lawsuit occurred when police were really looking for Rodney Lee Morton, a local man with a long criminal record.
Rodney Maurice Morton works for a national security agency of the federal government, has a security clearance and no criminal record, court records state.
On Dec. 4, 2007, Morton was arrested in Fredericksburg on an assault charge.
Morton went to the police station after receiving a call at work from his daughter telling him police were looking for him.
Morton was arrested and handcuffed by Officer D.S. Nielsen, accused of assaulting Warren Alonzo Carter, someone Morton said he did not know.
At the magistrate's office, court records state, both Nielsen and the magistrate expressed doubt that they had the right Rodney Morton.
The case went to court on Feb. 7, 2008, and Carter said Rodney Maurice Morton was not the one who assaulted him. The case was dismissed, but not before Morton paid $5,000 for a lawyer.
The lawsuit states that city police assured Morton that mistake would not happen again.
But on May 1 of last year, King George deputies surrounded Morton's house and informed him he'd been charged with selling cocaine to an undercover officer in Fredericksburg on March 5.
A city grand jury indicted Rodney Maurice Morton, but a judge dismissed that charge on June 2, 2008, after it was determined that Rodney Lee Morton was again the intended defendant.
Fredericksburg Police Capt. Rick Pennock said at the time that the department was taking internal steps to make sure nothing like this happens again to Morton or anybody else.
He said the first warrant city officers served on the wrong Morton had come from another locality. Pennock said he didn't know how the wrong information got on that warrant.
However, that put Morton's information in the city police system. And because of a clerical error, Pennock said Morton's information ended up on the cocaine indictment that was intended for someone else.
Though he never pulled any jail time, Rodney Maurice Morton said the ordeal had cost him time, money and embarrassment.
Morton, who grew up in Stafford County and has lived in this area his whole life, said previously that there was another time that police came to his Stafford home looking for the other Rodney Morton. He estimated that was about 13 years ago.
However, he was not arrested because one of the officers who showed up knew the other Morton.
Keith Epps: 540/374-5404
Email: kepps@freelancestar.com