SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) — A sexual assault victim alleges the San Francisco Police Department unlawfully kept her DNA in its data base without her consent and years later falsely used her DNA to connect her to a crime.
Jane Doe filed a complaint Sept. 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the City of San Francisco, William Scott, in his capacity as chief of police of the San Francisco Police Department, Mark Powell, in his individual capacity as crime laboratory director of the San Francisco Police Department, and others alleging negligence, civil rights violations, violation of the Bane Act and other claims.
According to her complaint, Doe was a sexual assault survivor and in 2016 and provided a DNA sample to the San Francisco Police Department. She claims the San Francisco Police Department maintained her DNA in its database for more than six years and routinely ran crime scene evidence, including her DNA, through the database without her consent.
Doe further claims her DNA was "likely tested" in thousands of criminal investigations even though the department had no reason to believe she was connected to any of the unrelated crime scenes. She alleges the San Francisco Police Department's actions were an unconstitutional invasion of privacy and resulted in her being unlawfully arrested on allegations of burglary in December of 2021, for which charges were eventually dropped. She claims she has suffered emotional distress, a loss of sense of security, dignity ad pride as a result of the defendants' violation of her constitutional rights.
Doe seeks monetary relief, trial by jury and all other just relief. She is represented by Ty Clarke of
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California case number 3:22-CV-05179-AGT