WPD facing lawsuit accusing falsified test results
Aug. 13—WHITLEY COUNTY — A local man and his wife are suing the City of Williamsburg, Police Chief Wayne Bird and members of the Williamsburg Police Department after they say police falsified test results on a substance found in the family's vehicle that ultimately led to an arrest and trafficking charges.
The substance was instead decorative sand bought to decorate a loved one's gravesite, says the lawsuit filed by attorney James H. Wren on behalf of his clients in Whitley County Circuit Court on August 6. However, because his client is the former brother-in-law of Chief Bird, Wren writes Bird "used his office as the Chief of Police of the City to retaliate against" him.
Back in March, Wren's client was driving his wife's vehicle when he was pulled over by WPD Officer Dorman Patrick, who is also named in the lawsuit. The lawsuit states that Patrick said he had observed the vehicle driving carelessly. After making contact, checking the plaintiff's driver's license and removing him from the vehicle, Patrick was later joined by Officer Bryson Lawson on scene, and the two began searching the vehicle.
The lawsuit then says Patrick stood up and told the plaintiff that his partner found "it" under the driver's seat, but never specified what "it" was. The lawsuit says Patrick then took a picture of the discovered item and called Chief Bird asking if he could identify "it." Patrick then told Lawson that Bird said the package was either methamphetamine or fentanyl, the lawsuit says. When the victim asked what fentanyl was, the lawsuit says Patrick responded telling him "not to act dumb."
The lawsuit says Patrick then put the man through multiple standard field sobriety tests (SFST), and although it says he completed them all, Patrick told the man he had completely failed all of the tests and was being arrested for DUI and a bench warrant issued against the plaintiff for unpaid child support.
After being transported to the county's ambulance service where he refused to submit to drug testing, the plaintiff was eventually taken to Williamsburg City Hall where more sobriety tests were conducted. The lawsuit says that at that time, the plaintiff heard Bird say that he was using "old tests" and that he didn't "know that they would work," says the lawsuit. It goes on to say Bird then went around a wall in the administrative space, and that the man could not see what actual testing was being done on the substance found in the vehicle. The lawsuit says at no time did the man see Patrick, Lawson, or any other officer hand custody of the package to Bird. Nor did he see Bird ever take a sample from the bag found in the vehicle.
The lawsuit says that Bird then brought what he claimed was a testing sample in front of the victim's face, but that the bag contained only a red liquid and no sandy substance that would be expected in the testing sample, "had Bird actually tested the substance found in [the] vehicle," reads the lawsuit.
"When the sample was held in the face of [the plaintiff], Bird additionally shouted, 'We got you! After you pull time for us, you will pull time for DEA — it will be ten years a piece, for a total of 20 years,'" reads the lawsuit. "Bird was smiling, and appeared to be happy and cheerful that [the plaintiff] was being taken to jail having been 'caught.'"
"Bird staged a false negative — either testing another substance known to be positive for methamphetamine, or intentionally, recklessly, and grossly negligently tainted the sand (if he ever acquired possession of the package) with a known quantity of methamphetamine, so that the field test would report positive," says the lawsuit.
"Bird was so convinced that he had captured his former brother-in-law with a large quantity of methamphetamine, Bird reasoned that when Kentucky State Police laboratory confirmed that the substance seized was methamphetamine, no one would be the wiser that Bird did not actually test the sand seized from [the vehicle]," it added.
The plaintiffs later learned that their car had been impounded and the police department was claiming the bag held 273 grams of methamphetamine. The lawsuit also makes mention of a Facebook post published by the police department on March 22, 2021 claiming they had seized "approximately half a pound" of a controlled substance from the victim's vehicle. Wren called the claim that WPD had seized over a quarter of a million dollars from the victim's car "absurd on its face," and said it placed his client in grave danger of "burglary, robbery, or even homicide."
The lawsuit claims that while there was a warrant for the plaintiff's arrest for back due child support, the $1,400 total needed to release that warrant was available on the morning of March 21, the day after the plaintiff was arrested. However, because police claimed the seized bag contained methamphetamine, the plaintiff was taken into custody and would not be released from incarceration until after the preliminary hearing on the felony of trafficking in methamphetamine.
"After the Southeastern Laboratory Branch returned with the result that no controlled substance was found in the sand, the Trafficking in Methamphetamine felony claim was dismissed with prejudice," reads the lawsuit. "No felony claim was presented to a Whitley County Grand Jury. However, as plead above, the remaining false DUI claim continues to be prosecuted by Bird, Patrick, and the Williamsburg Police Department."
