A woman who sued after she said she was held in the Porter County Jail for two months “due to mistaken identity” will receive $6,000, court records show.
A settlement was reached in January after Gloria J. Blue, of Gary, filed
Blue will receive a judgment of $6,000 and attorneys’ fee, according to court records.
The Porter County Sheriff’s Department and Ivan Bodensteiner, Blue’s attorney, declined comment. Phone calls to numbers listed for Blue were not returned.
On Nov. 28, 2017, Manteuffel signed an “affidavit to show probable cause for the issuance of an arrest warrant” claiming Blue had “sold/delivered cocaine to a confidential source” in Porter County in 2017 on Aug. 30, Aug. 31 and Oct. 2, the complaint states. This warrant “was obtained as a result of inaccurate information,” according to the complaint.
The next day, a judge directed the clerk to issue a warrant for Blue’s arrest, the complaint states.
Blue was arrested Jan. 29 in Hazel Crest, Ill., and transferred to Porter County Jail, where she was “illegally detained for nearly 50 days” from Feb. 1 to March 18, according to the complaint.
“From the time she was transferred to the Porter County Jail, Ms. Blue regularly informed jail officials that they were holding the wrong person, however, no one took her seriously,” the complaint states.
Blue was charged with three counts of delivery of cocaine, a level 4 felony, in Porter Superior Court, the complaint states. A level 4 felony carries a prison sentence of two to 12 years.
On March 18, Manteuffel met with sheriff’s officers and reviewed records, including video footage of the drug deals, and “concluded Ms. Blue was not involved in the drug deals that led to her arrest and detention,” according to the complaint.
“The information that led to the dismissal of the charges was available to the defendants and their agents from the beginning, but they chose to ignore it,” the complaint states.
Charges against Blue were dismissed March 19 “due to mistaken identity,” according to the complaint.
The civil suit claimed that Blue’s Fourth and 14th Amendment rights were violated in the case, court records show.
Because of Blue’s “illegal arrest and detention,” she “lost her job, lost her car, fell behind in her payments on her obligations and incurred mental and emotional distress,” the complaint states.
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