City to pay $900K for making man confess to murder that never happenedMan Who Reported His Dad Missing Was Coerced into Confessing to Murder — Yet Father Was AlivePolice pressured him to confess to a murder that never happened. Now, Fontana will pay him $900,000 View CBS News Video on Fontana pays $900,000 settlement after police interrogate man for 17 hours Psychologically tortured’: California city pays man nearly $1m after 17-hour police interrogation Fontana pays nearly $900,000 for ‘psychological torture’ inflicted by police to get false confession Fontana pays nearly $900,000 for ‘psychological torture’ inflicted by police to get false confession ‘In my 40 years of suing the police I have never seen that level of deliberate cruelty,’ says an attorney for Thomas Perez Jr. PUBLISHED: May 23, 2024 at 2:01 p.m. | UPDATED: May 23, 2024 at 4:51 p.m. By TONY SAAVEDRA | tsaavedra@scng.com | Orange County Register Within hours after Thomas Perez Jr. called police to report his father missing, he found himself in a tiny interrogation room confronted by Fontana detectives determined to extract a confession that he killed his dad. Perez had told police that his father, 71-year-old Thomas Perez Sr., went out for a walk with the family dog at about 10 p.m. on Aug. 7, 2018. The dog returned within minutes without Perez’s father. Investigators didn’t believe his story, and over the next 17 hours they grilled him to try to get to the “truth.” According to court records, detectives told Perez that his father was dead, that they had recovered his body and it now “wore a toe tag at the morgue.” They said they had evidence that Perez killed his father and that he should just admit it, records show. Perez insisted he didn’t remember killing anyone, but detectives allegedly told him that the human mind often tries to suppress troubling memories. At one point during the interrogation, the investigators even threatened to have his pet Labrador Retriever, Margosha, euthanized as a stray, and brought the dog into the room so he could say goodbye. “OK? Your dog’s now gone, forget about it,” said an investigator. “How can you sit there, how can you sit there and say you don’t know what happened, and your dog is sitting there looking at you, knowing that you killed your dad?” a detective said. “Look at your dog. She knows, because she was walking through all the blood.” Finally, after curling up with the dog on the floor, Perez broke down and confessed. He said he had stabbed his father multiple times with a pair of scissors during an altercation in which his father hit Perez over the head with a beer bottle. Suicide attempt He was so distraught that he even tried to hang himself with the drawstring from his shorts after being left alone in the interrogation room. Perez was arrested, handcuffed and transported to a mental hospital for 72-hour observation. But later that day, the truth derailed the detectives’ theory and their prized confession. Perez’s father wasn’t dead — or even missing. Thomas Sr. was at Los Angeles International Airport waiting for a flight to see his daughter in Northern California. But police didn’t immediately tell Perez. “Mentally torturing a false confession out of Tom Perez, concealing from him that his father was alive and well, and confining him in the psych ward because they made him suicidal, in my 40 years of suing the police I have never seen that level of deliberate cruelty by the police,” said Jerry Steering, Perez’s attorney in Newport Beach. $900,000 settlement Steering filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court against the city of Fontana, alleging that police psychologically tortured Perez and coerced a false confession without first determining that the father had actually been slain. The suit was recently settled for nearly $900,000. Perez agreed to the settlement rather than take the case to trial out of concern that a jury award could be overturned on appeal on grounds of qualified immunity for police. Generally, qualified immunity protects law enforcement officers unless they violate clearly established law arising from a case with nearly identical facts, according to the Legal Defense Fund. Fontana police did not return an email seeking comment. Three of the involved officers remain employed with the department. One other officer has retired. Why police were suspicious In court documents and depositions, police say they had reason to believe Perez was lying. First, they noted he seemed “distracted” and “unconcerned” during the 911 call, according to court records. Officers responding to the call noted the father’s cellphone and wallet were still at the home, which was in disarray. Police saw the mess as a sign of a struggle, but Steering said Perez was renovating the house and had argued with his father about it. Additionally, a police dog sniffed out the scent of a corpse in the father’s bedroom. And there were small blood stains in the house. Steering later would say the blood stains were caused by the father’s finger-prick diabetes tests. Perez’s lawsuit claims detectives also refused for several hours to retrieve his medication for high blood pressure, asthma, depression and stress. Emotional distress Perez became so distraught that he began pulling out his hair, hitting himself, making anguished noises and tearing off his shirt while police encouraged him to confess, according to a summary of the case written by U.S. District Court Judge Dolly Gee. “He was sleep deprived, mentally ill and significantly undergoing symptoms of withdrawal from his psychiatric medications,” Gee wrote. At one point during the interrogation, investigators drove Perez to get coffee and then to some housing tracts where he had been looking to buy. Detectives berated Perez, insisting he did not need his medication and that they knew he killed his father, according to the case summary. “When can you take us to show us where Daddy is?” asked one of the investigators. Later, during their interview, the detectives told Perez his father’s body actually had been found already. Asked in a deposition about his line of questioning, one of the detectives said: “I believed at the time if we told him that we had located the body, then maybe he would give us more information about what had occurred.” Police, in court records, insisted Perez was voluntarily undergoing questioning and was free to go at any time. However, in her case summary, Gee wrote that the “circumstances suggested to Perez that he was not free to leave.” She also noted that there was “no legitimate government interest that would justify treating Perez in this manner while he was in medical distress.” Father turns up alive Perez’s nightmare ended shortly after police got a phone call from his sister, who said their father was alive and well. He had actually walked to the train station in Fontana and rode the line to Los Angeles County to visit a relative and then took a bus to visit a female friend, Steering said. Perez Sr. later went to the airport to await a flight to Oakland to visit his daughter. Police picked up the father at the airport and brought him to the Fontana station. But the investigation didn’t stop there. Detectives obtained a warrant to again search Perez’s house for evidence that he had assaulted an “unknown victim,” according to Gee’s summary. It appears none was found. Perez was not released until after the end of the three-day psychological observation period. He then retrieved his dog from Riverside County Animal Services, tracking her down through an implanted chip, Steering said. While Gee concluded Fontana detectives had sufficient reason to believe an offense had been committed, she criticized officers for their interrogation tactics. “A reasonable juror could conclude that the detectives inflicted unconstitutional psychological torture on Perez,” Gee wrote in her summary judgment. “Their tactics indisputably led to Perez’s subjective confusion and disorientation, to the point he falsely confessed to killing his father, and tried to take his own life.” —————————————————————————- Fontana Police “Psychologically Tortured” Man to Falsely Confess to Killing His Father Newport Beach, CA May 19, 2024 The City of Fontana has paid a Fontana man $900,000[1] for what a federal judge has described as “psychological torture”. On the evening of August 7, 2018, Thomas Perez, Sr. took a walk with the family dog to get the mail. The dog returned to the family home in Fontana, California, but Thomas Perez, Sr. didn’t. The next day, August 8, 2018, concerned about his elderly father not coming home, the man’s son, Thomas Perez, Jr. made a missing person report to the Fontana Police Department. He told Fontana PD that his father may have gone to his lady friend’s house that evening, but he didn’t know who she was or where she lived. As things turned out, Thomas Perez, Sr. had in fact walked to the Fontana Train Station, and had taken the train to Alhambra, California, to visit his lady friend. However, because the Perez home was in disarray from repair work on the home, and because Thomas Perez, Sr. had left his cell phone and wallet there, Fontana Police Officers became suspicious that the father was missing due to foul play. Fontana Police Department Detectives took Thomas Perez, Jr. to the Fontana Police Department station and subjected him to 17 hours of intense interrogation techniques to get him to confess to killing his father. The Fontana officers told Thomas Perez, Jr. that in traumatic situations such as when a son kills his father, the memory of the murder is too painful to remember, and that’s why he didn’t recall killing his father. After many hours of intense interrogation, Thomas Perez, Jr. still denied killing his father. The Detectives then told Thomas Perez, Jr. that they had located his father, that he had been murdered, that he was in the morgue with a toe tag on, that there were stab marks on his body, and that the Detectives had overwhelming evidence that Thomas Perez, Jr. had been the murderer, and that is was time to confess. The Detectives also brought the family dog to the Fontana Police Station and told Thomas Perez, Jr. that he was going to prison for life and was never going to see the light of day again and that they were going to euthanize his beloved dog[1]. Thomas Perez, Jr. was in shock and was severely traumatized. Eventually, after 16 hours of intense interrogation, they were able to get Thomas Perez, Jr. to affirm the police assertions that he had been in an altercation with his father and stabbed him, and that his father had hit him over the head with a beer bottle. None of that was true, but using well-known police interrogation techniques, they were able to overcome Thomas Perez, Jr.’s will. Thomas Perez, Jr. was so severely traumatized by the Detectives, that when they left him alone in the interrogation room, he tried to hang himself with his shoelaces. In a June 15, 2023 Order on Summary Judgment in Thomas Perez, Jr.’s federal lawsuit against the City and the Officers[2], United States District Judge Dolly Gee found that “a reasonable juror could conclude that the Detectives inflicted unconstitutional psychological torture on Perez”: “First of all, Perez was questioned for 17 hours, even after he was in visible distress . . . The Interrogation Room Video contains hours of footage during which Perez is upset and crying, while Hale[3] and Janusz accuse him of murder, press him to confess, and even imply that his dog might need to be put down as a consequence of his actions . . . (“It did happen . . . you killed him, and he’s dead. . . . You know you killed him, you did. . . . You’re not being honest with yourself. How can you sit there, how can you sit there and say you don’t know what happened, and your dog is sitting there looking at you, knowing that you killed your dad? Look at your dog. She knows, because she was walking through all the blood.”). At one point while they are telling him to confess, he starts pulling at his own hair, hitting himself, making anguished noises, tears off his own shirt, and nearly falls to the floor. During this episode, the officers laugh at him and tell him that he is stressing out his dog . . . Later, they tell him that they are going to give away his dog. Hale and Janusz’s conduct impacted Perez so greatly that he falsely confessed to murdering his father and attempted to commit suicide in the station. He testified that the officers prevented him from sleeping and deprived him of his medication. There is no legitimate government interest that would justify treating Perez in this manner while he was in medical distress, since the FPD already had two warrants to search his person and property, and he was already essentially in custody and unable to flee or tamper with any evidence.”[4] United States District Judge Dolly Gee After 17 hours of Interrogation, the Fontana Detectives got a phone call from Thomas Perez, Jr.’s sister telling them that her father was fine, that he had gone to his lady friend’s home in El Monte on the evening of August 7, 2018, that she had purchased an airline ticket for her father, and that he was at LAX airport waiting to board an airplane to travel to Northern California to visit her. Thomas Perez, Jr.’s lawyer, Newport Beach Attorney Jerry L. Steering commented: “After the Fontana Detectives learned that Thomas Perez, Sr. was alive and well and that there had not been any sort of physical altercation with his son, rather than tell him that his father was alive, they took him to the Hospital for a Civil Protective Custody 72-hour (“5150 psych”) hold, and told the hospital that he was suicidal. The Fontana Detectives also told the hospital that he was still in police custody and that no one was permitted to contact him. Accordingly, for the next three days, Thomas Perez, Jr. was confined on a 5150-psych hold in the hospital without knowing that his father was alive and well, believing that his father had been murdered, that his dog was going to be euthanized, and that he was going to prison for life for murdering his father.” “I have heard of cases involving allegations of coerced confessions before but had not actually watched how the police did it. When I watched the video recordings of Fontana PD’s interrogation of Mr. Perez, it became apparent to me that these cops could have gotten any of us to confess to killing Lincoln.” “Between mentally torturing a false confession out of Tom Perez, concealing from him that his father was alive and well, and confining him in the psych ward because they made him suicidal, in my 40 years of suing the police I have never seen that level of deliberate cruelty by the police.” “Mr. Perez only settled his case because of the looming possibility that the Fontana Officers might have prevailed on an appeal because the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has been tossing police misconduct lawsuits based on the Doctrine of Qualified Immunity, which allows the courts to find that a plaintiff’s constitutional rights were violated, but still award the police officers immunity from suit because there was no prior case so factually similar that any police officer would be on notice that the exact conduct complained of was a constitutional violation.” Jerry L. Steering, Esq. [1] The Detectives actually later did take Perez, Jr.’s dog to the pound, and he was only able to save the dog from being euthanized because he had a locator chip implanted in the dog. [2] Thomas Anthony Perez v. City of Fontana, et al., United States District Court, Central District of California Case Number 5:19-cv-01623-DMG-KK. [3] The Judge mistook FPD Officer Jeremy Hale for Kyle Guthrie. [4] Thomas Anthony Perez v. City of Fontana, et al., United States District Court, Central District of California Case Number 5:19-cv-01623-DMG-KK, Order on Motion for Summary Judgment, pp. 21-22. [1] Actual amount $898,000.00.
