NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - The New York Police Department was sued by a man who says he was falsely arrested and prosecuted for a driving while intoxicated charge.
Plaintiff Rolandedwige Alexis was sitting in his vehicle when he was approached by the NYPD at approximately 1:25 a.m. on October 13, 2018, at the corner of Henshaw and Dyckman St. in New York, an April 23 lawsuit says.
Alexis says the officers ordered him to step out of his vehicle and accused him of driving while intoxicated despite Alexis not having driven the car or put the key in the ignition.
The plaintiff says his vehicle was illegally searched and he was violently apprehended, then booked and charged with a DWI.
Alexis says he was wrongfully charged and was not operating his vehicle intoxicated, and accuses the NYPD of choosing to arrest, book and prosecute solely based on his race.
The complaint does not state what Alexis' sobriety level was at the time of the encounter with the police.
The NYPD is charged with protected speech and activities violation, retaliation, unlawful search and seizure, false arrest and false imprisonment, assault and battery, excessive force, malicious prosecution, malicious abuse, denial of right to due process, denial of rights to fair trial, biased profiling and many other civil rights charges.