Glaser v. City and County of Denver

557 F. App'x 689
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 29, 2014
Docket13-1165
StatusUnpublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 557 F. App'x 689 (Glaser v. City and County of Denver) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Glaser v. City and County of Denver, 557 F. App'x 689 (10th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

CARLOS F. LUCERO, Circuit Judge.

Douglas Glaser appeals from the district court’s dismissal of his pro se civil rights complaint under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

I

Glaser’s ninety-seven page complaint, filed on March 30, 2012, named numerous defendants and asserted nineteen different claims for relief. He alleged claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of his First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as well as claims for malicious prosecution, conspiracy, vindictive prosecution, abuse of process, false arrest, false imprisonment, defamation, slander, libel, harassment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Glaser sought damages, injunctive relief, and a formal investigation into his allegations. The defendants named in his complaint fell into four groups: (1) the City and County of Denver and twenty-one Denver police officers; (2) the Denver District Attorney and five deputy district attorneys (“Denver DA Defendants”); (3) a Denver District Court judge and an investigator with the Colorado Division of Securities (“CDS”); and (4) federal agents with the Social Security Administration, *694 the Secret Service, and the Department of Homeland Security (“Federal Defendants”). 1

Because this appeal concerns the district court’s disposition of a motion to dismiss, we take the following facts from the complaint. See Wilson v. Montano, 715 F.3d 847, 852 (10th Cir.2013). In 2005, Glaser was running a mergers and acquisitions firm when he learned that CDS was investigating fraud related to a public company in which he was the largest shareholder. On February 20, 2005, Glaser was the victim of a hit and run automobile accident. The police told him they would tow his damaged car to a dealership, but instead impounded it. Denver police officers came to his home that night with a warrant to search for a passport in the name of Michael Douglas Glaser. The officers claimed that Glaser had used this false passport as his identification at the scene of the auto accident, along with proof of insurance and a vehicle registration in his own name. The officers seized items from his home that were beyond the scope of the search warrant. They arrested him and he was released on bond the following day. Four days later, government agents raided Glaser’s office with a search warrant seeking the same alleged false passport and other items including financial records, computers, copiers, and fax machines. The agents were from the Denver Police Department, CDS, the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service, and the Social Security Administration.

A federal grand jury was convened in March 2005, but it failed to indict Glaser. Throughout that summer, defendants held state grand jury proceedings and subpoenaed information about Glaser’s financial accounts and taxes. During this period, the defendants kept his car impounded. They told brokers, business associates, financial institutions, and the employees of businesses Glaser frequented that he was committing fraud. They also threatened Glaser’s business associates with prosecution if they continued to do business with him. Defendants made false statements about him to his girlfriend and ex-wife and threatened his personal assistant and his girlfriend with prosecution if they refused to assist in the case against Glaser. They encouraged his landlord to evict him from his office building and dissuaded a prospective employee from working with him. Defendants also monitored his email account and took trash from his residence. Glaser alleges that defendants took these actions without factual evidence or probable cause to support their allegations.

On August 31, 2005, a Denver grand jury returned a forty-three count indictment against Glaser, alleging violations of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act (“COCCA”), Colo.Rev.Stat. §§ 18-17-101 to 18-17-109, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, fraud, theft, and criminal impersonation. Glaser was arrested and bond was set at $750,000. He posted bond and was released, but he was remanded back into custody on September 29, 2005, because he had not satisfied the condition of his bond requiring surrender of the passport in the name of Michael Douglas Glaser. Glaser claimed the U.S. Passport Agency had confirmed that the alleged passport was never issued, and he therefore refused to accept the court’s offer to remove this bond condition if he would admit that the passport had existed but was lost or destroyed.

*695 While in jail, Glaser’s funds diminished quickly. He informed the Denver District Court that he was trying to sell his home so he could continue to pay his private defense attorney. He alleged that defendants had filed a spurious lien against his home, blocking its sale and forcing him into foreclosure. Years later, after Glaser filed numerous motions regarding the lien, the court ruled that the lien should not have been filed. Because he was unable to sell his home, Glaser could no longer pay his private counsel. That counsel withdrew in April 2006, and the court appointed an attorney. The same month, the Denver District Court dismissed four of the forty-three counts. At some point, the court also decided to split Glaser’s criminal case into three separate trials.

Glaser received documents in discovery showing that defendants had committed perjury in the grand jury proceedings. He sought information from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation regarding records related to the February 2005 auto accident, and his investigation showed that the police officer made no query at that time regarding the name Michael Douglas Glaser, contradicting the officer’s grand jury testimony. Glaser’s appointed counsel told him this information could result in dismissal of the charges, but the court denied all of his motions.

When Glaser appeared for trial on August 21, 2006, the prosecution indicated it was appealing the dismissal of the four counts, and the case was stayed awaiting the outcome of that appeal. Glaser’s counsel filed a motion to dismiss the charges, alleging a speedy trial violation. The Denver District Court granted that motion on February 9, 2007, and dismissed the entire case, but Glaser remained in jail pending a ruling on the prosecution’s motion for reconsideration, which the court ultimately granted. Glaser alleges that the court did not reverse its determination regarding the speedy trial violation, but it nonetheless reinstated the case on February 13, 2007. Trial on count forty-three proceeded the next day, resulting in a hung jury and a mistrial.

Glaser learned that his appointed attorney was being investigated in connection with a federal drug indictment. When his attorney committed suicide, the Denver District Court held there had been a waiver of his speedy trial rights and moved his retrial date to July 2007.

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557 F. App'x 689, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/glaser-v-city-and-county-of-denver-ca10-2014.