St. Paul has been dropped as a party in a slew of multimillion dollar lawsuits that sprang from a St. Paul police officer’s handling of an allegedly fabricated federal sex trafficking.
A federal judge ruled this week that the suits failed to support allegations that it was any of the city’s customs, practices or policies that influenced the lead investigator’s botched handling of the case, nor that such behavior was widespread among other police officers, according to court documents.
The judge ordered that the city and the St. Paul police supervisors who had been named in the roughly 20 lawsuits be dismissed from the claims.
The judge also dismissed more than half of the 21 lawsuits previously facing the officer in question, St. Paul police Sgt. Heather Weyker.
In those instances, the court found that the plaintiffs failed to make the case that their constitutional rights had been violated when they were detained following Weyker’s alleged fabrication of evidence and other information in the multistate sex-trafficking ring, legal documents say.
The operation led to the imprisonment of some 30 people, many of them Minnesotans of Somali descent.
In some of those cases, the federal judge found that the individuals were lawfully detained for other alleged crimes.
“This was a clear win for the city,” St. Paul City Attorney Samuel Clark said of the rulings. “The simple fact of the matter is that the court dismissed the vast majority of the claims and defendants in these cases. The few cases that are left are much more narrow than what the plaintiffs hoped for. The remaining plaintiffs are in for an uphill battle moving forward.”
Weyker was accused in the lawsuits of falsely manufacturing evidence against the various plaintiffs “in order to secure a federal indictment” that led to their imprisonment, legal documents say.
Thirty people were charged in the sex-trafficking case, which authorities said involved juvenile victims and stretched from the Twin Cities to Nashville, Tenn. Last year, a federal appeals court blasted the handling of the case, leading prosecutors to subsequently dismiss charges against the incarcerated defendants.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in its findings underscored a district court’s analysis that Weyker “likely exaggerated or fabricated important aspects” of an alleged victim’s story, that she lied to a grand jury and also later during a detention hearing, court documents say.
A handful of the lawsuits are still proceeding against Weyker though, including one filed by Hamdi Ali Osman, a Somali woman who moved to the United States when she was 2 and grew up in Minneapolis.
Osman’s case garnered media attention. She was detained for four years due to what she claims were Weyker’s lies.
She sued Weyker and some of her supervisors at the St. Paul police department and the city itself last year. Her suit seeks $12 million in damages. Though the court’s recent order drops Weyker’s superiors and the city from its claims, the federal judge found that Osman’s claims against Weyker were plausible enough to move forward.
“Osman adequately alleges that no sex-trafficking conspiracy existed and that Weyker fabricated evidence as to the sex-trafficking-related charges, leading to Osman’s unlawful arrest and continued detention,” legal documents say.
Osman’s attorney, Andrew Irlbeck, called the judge’s ruling in that regard a victory.
“Although this case has a long way to go before justice is ultimately served, Ms. Osman has won the first battle in this fight to vindicate her civil rights, and for that, she and her attorneys are grateful,” he wrote in a prepared statement.
Irlbeck also represents a handful of others whose suits were dismissed by the judge’s recent order. He said he is considering the next steps for those clients.
“Judge Ericksen is a very respected jurist, and her opinions reflect a keen attention to detail and deep analysis given the heavy task at hand. We are going to give her orders due consideration, and work with our clients to determine the best path forward for each of them,” Irlbeck wrote.
A spokesman for the United States Justice Department’s civil division, which has one of its attorneys representing Weyker against the allegations, said the department had no comment on the recent legal developments.
Weyker had previously argued that all claims against her be dismissed because the plaintiffs “fail(ed) to plausibly alleged that (Weyker) … violated any clearly established constitutional right,” according to court documents.
Weyker initially was placed on administrative leave after the allegations against her surfaced. She has since returned to work in a non-investigative role and is currently serving as a sergeant in the St. Paul police department’s community engagement unit.