$2M settlement reached, says group suing police and Raleigh after fake drug arrests
The city of Raleigh agreed to pay 15 plaintiffs $2 million in a federal lawsuit that contends officers worked with a confidential informant to frame people on drug trafficking charges.
The civil rights lawsuit filed in April sought policy changes and actual and punitive damages from the city of Raleigh, Officer Omar Abdullah and seven of his colleagues, including a sergeant and a lieutenant.
“Plaintiffs appreciate the City of Raleigh’s recognition of the trauma and suffering caused by these wrongful arrests and incarcerations,” states a press release announcing the settlement sent out by the plaintiffs’ attorneys just before midnight Wednesday.
The press release was issued by the group’s attorneys Abraham Rubert-Schewel, Emily Gladden and Micheal Littlejohn Jr. It also urged the police department and Wake County District Attorney’s Office to adopt recommended changes to prevent others from being falsely accused and jailed.
City leaders appreciate everyone’s efforts in the case, said a statement from the city.
“While the settlement resolves the lawsuit, it does not end efforts by the Raleigh Police Department to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” the statement said. “No one should ever be arrested based on fraudulent evidence.”
The lawsuit was filed by 12 people arrested or affected by arrests and jail time that followed a Raleigh police informant who contended people had sold him heroin, or in one case marijuana, but provided drugs that turned out to be fake. Three people were added during the mediation period, according to Rubert-Schewel.
Each client will receive an individualized settlement, he said, but declined to give any specifics about the range each person would receive or how much will go to attorneys.
SWAT style raids alleged
More plaintiffs are likely, Rubert-Schewel wrote in an email.
“We have informed the City of at least six additional potential plaintiffs who were harmed by this scheme. These individuals are all women and children who were detained or had guns pointed at them during SWAT style raids of their homes,” he wrote. “We intend to seek justice for them as well.”
Some of the suggested policy changes include testing suspected illegal drugs within 24 hours, ending the use of paid informants and establishing a working group to explore advantages and disadvantages of the practice.
The lawsuit contends that about 15 Black men were falsely charged in a fake heroin scheme and spent a collective 2 1/2 years behind bars before the charges were dismissed.
The men lost jobs and missed cancer treatments and time with their children, including a newborn, the lawsuit states. One man was actually convicted of sale of a counterfeit controlled substance, which was later overturned.
No evidence against officer, DA says
While District Attorney Lorrin Freeman has said there isn’t any evidence that shows Abdullah knew the drugs were fake, the lawsuit contends that he and others knew.
The lawsuit doesn’t name the informant other than by his nickname, Aspirin. Abdullah and another officer started calling the informant Aspirin after a 2018 deal in which he sold a confidential informant crushed aspirin claiming it was illegal drugs, the lawsuit states.
Dennis Leon Williams Jr., who has been identified as the informant through court documents and interviews, was charged earlier this month with five counts of obstructing justice in the fake drugs scheme. His attorney said he hasn’t received the evidence in the case and has no information at this time.
The timeline
In August 2018, Raleigh police officers including Abdullah arrested Williams, according to court records. He was charged with selling a counterfeit controlled substance. The charge was dismissed at the end of February 2019, “in the interest of justice,” court records indicate.
After the arrest, Abdullah and David Chadwick Nance successfully sought approval to use him as an unnamed confidential informant, according to the lawsuit.
From January 2019 to Aug. 30, 2019, Williams was in prison serving a sentence on a Nash County conviction of larceny over $1,000.
From October 2018, to May 15, 2020, the informant contended that at least 15 people sold him drugs that turned out to be fake, the lawsuit states. All of the charges were dismissed by July 30, 2020.
The officers provided marked cash, and the informant bought drugs, the lawsuit states. The informant agreed to be a confidential informant to work off pending charges and to make money.
At one point, the informant complained about his pay, and Abdullah told him he could make more money if he brought in bigger cases, another officer said, according to the lawsuit.
Abdullah and the informant then conspired to fabricate heroin charges against at least 15 individuals, the lawsuit states.
“Aspirin with the knowledge and assistance of Abdullah hid fake heroin on his body before each alleged buy,” the lawsuit states.
Abdullah claimed he searched the informant before each buy, but never found any contraband, the lawsuit states.
“Aspirin would shield his undercover camera, in violation of RPD procedure, with his jacket so the alleged buy would not be recorded,” the lawsuit states.
Abdullah met alone with the informant before and after the alleged transactions and when he gave him money for his work, which are all also violations of Raleigh police policy, the lawsuit states.
Nance and three other officers told Abdullah “on numerous occasions” that the drugs were brown sugar, the lawsuit states, and occasional field tests on the alleged drugs also indicated they were fake.
Still, Abdullah charged the plaintiffs and others with trafficking and continued to use the confidential informant, the lawsuit states.
Officers reported the fake heroin to a sergeant and a lieutenant but no one tried to stop the arrests or prosecutions, it states.
Defendants also failed to “or severely delayed” informing the Wake County District Attorney’s Office about the negative test results, the lawsuit says.
Freeman said earlier this year that these cases highlighted the fact that her office didn’t initially see the pattern of fake drugs from a specific informant and officer, since a half-dozen prosecutors work drug cases.
Changes that followed include drug analysis chemists notifying a representative in the District Attorney’s Office if results could affect pending charges, according to documents obtained by The N&O.
An unjust system
Robin Mills, whose son was one of those arrested on trafficking charges, said no amount of money is enough for the trauma that her family and others faced.
Mills said that the expedient settlement indicates that city officials wanted the case to go away.
The false arrests and all that followed amplify the challenges that Black people face in the criminal justice system.
“I think that what it says to me loudly, that the law is not necessarily set up to protect Black people,” she said. Mills said her son declined to do an interview, but she spoke to The News & Observer and other outlets in an attempt to raise awareness about the arrests and to fight for policy change, without making her son, Marcus Vanirvin, a target.
In May 2020, Mills received a phone call that Vanirvin, then a father of two, including a newborn, had been arrested in front of his family on a charge of trafficking heroin.
“I said ‘There is no way,’ “ Mills said.
Police raided his family’s apartment, Mills said, slashing couch cushions and searching and tossing items throughout their home.
His bond was set at $450,000, she said, but later reduced to about $200,000.
Mills paid $2,000 for an attorney, who shared that there were concerns about the informant who had fingered her son in the case but said he couldn’t immediately get him out of jail.
As her son sat in jail, she worried about him catching COVID and whether this could result in a conviction that would take him away from his family for a minimum of 7.5 years.
Her son’s partner eventually paid a bail bondsman about $1,200 to get Mills out of jail after 18 days. The charges were later dropped.
Questions remain
When Vanirvin first returned home he was appreciative of his freedom, she said, but also traumatized by the situation.
“For a week, he sat numb,” she said.
The incident still haunts him, Mills said, and she wants him to get therapy.
“He feels there is a target on anyone in the hood, and if you walk down the street at the wrong time, you could get arrested,” Mills said.
Despite the settlement, Mills said she still has many questions.
Questions that include how Raleigh police vet their confidential informants, how much they are paid and how in the world could Abdullah not know that the drugs were fake.
“I could see him get duped once, maybe even twice, but over a dozen times?” she said. “No, no. That dog don’t hunt.”
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This story was originally published September 30, 2021 at 7:30 AM with the headline "$2M settlement reached, says group suing police and Raleigh after fake drug arrests."
