Huon v. Mudge

597 F. App'x 868
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJanuary 5, 2015
DocketNo. 13-2966
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 597 F. App'x 868 (Huon v. Mudge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Huon v. Mudge, 597 F. App'x 868 (7th Cir. 2015).

Opinion

ORDER

Meanith Huon, an attorney representing himself, sued the law-enforcement officers and prosecutors involved in charging him with sexual assault in 2008 and cyberstalk-ing and witness harassment in 2009. He appeals from the grant of summary judgment for all defendants, arguing, principally, that the district court erroneously concluded from the undisputed evidence that probable cause existed to believe he committed each offense. We agree with the district court’s comprehensive decision and affirm the judgment.

I. Background

Before recounting the events underlying Huon’s lawsuit, we must emphasize that no material facts were disputed at summary judgment. In his appellate brief Huon accuses the district court of deciding disputed issues of material fact in favor of the defendants, but his brief identifies no example that we can see, and when we pressed him at oral argument to cite even one instance, he could not. Huon’s real grievance, as far as we can tell, is that the district court accepted as true those statements of material fact from the defendants which he disagreed with but did not contradict with evidence. But that is how summary judgment works; properly supported statements of material fact are deemed to be undisputed unless the oppos: ing party produces admissible, contradictory evidence. See FED. R. CIV. P. 56(e)(2); Tindle v. Pulte Home Corp., 607 F.3d 494, 495-96 (7th Cir.2010); United States v. 5443 Suffield Terrace, Skokie, Ill., 607 F.3d 504, 510-11 (7th Cir.2010). And factual disputes about immaterial matters are irrelevant. See Montgomery v. Am. Airlines, Inc., 626 F.3d 382, 389 (7th Cir.2010). With that in mind we set out the undisputed facts, though in the light most favorable to Huon as the opposing party. See Nova Design Build, Inc. v. Grace Hotels, LLC, 652 F.3d 814, 817 (7th Cir.2011); Rain v. Rolls-Royce Corp., 626 F.3d 372, 376 (7th Cir.2010).

Around midnight on June 29, 2008, the sheriffs department in Madison County, Illinois, was alerted that two different 911 callers had reported that a woman banged on their doors yelling hysterically that [871]*871someone'was trying to kill her. Sheriffs deputies went to the second home where the woman, Dianna Counts, was waiting inside. She told the deputies that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted.

The next morning, William Marconi and David Vucich, both detectives with the sheriffs department, were assigned to investigate. They did not personally interview the 911 callers, relying instead on another deputy’s report. They did. interview Counts that afternoon. She told them she had answered an ad seeking help promoting an alcohol brand; the man who had posted the ad identified himself as “John” and offered $35 to $40 per hour. The previous evening, Counts continued, they had met for the first time at a bar in St. Louis, Missouri. Afterward, Counts said, they visited two more bars, discussing her career and possible promotional work. They then headed for a nightclub, with John driving because Counts’s car was low on gas. When he passed the exit for the club, she explained, she became nervous and aske.d where they were going. It was at that point, Counts told the detectives, that John started groping her and pulling at her clothing; she protested, but he grabbed her, digitally penetrated her, and forced her to perform oral sex. When John left the highway, she jumped from the slowing car, leaving her purse with her ID and cellphone inside.

Counts gave the detectives the phone number John had used to contact her. An Internet search linked the number to Sprint, so the detectives sent the carrier a form asserting “exigent circumstances,” see 18 U.S.C. § 2702, justifying disclosure of subscriber information and call records. The detectives stated in their request that the phone had been used to “facilitate a sexual assault” and that they believed the suspect might have offended in the past and might do so again. Sprint responded that the number had been sold to Virgin Mobile, and Virgin Mobile in turn said it was assigned to. a prepaid phone registered to “John Rogers,” who gave as his mailing address a P.O. Box number, which the detectives determined to be fictitious. Sprint disclosed the requested call records, and from the list of outgoing calls the detectives discovered that “John,” a products promoter, had made unsolicited recruiting calls to four women using the same “marketing promoter” pitch given Counts; these women had refused to meet with him because they were suspicious. A Sprint employee told the detectives that the phone could be “pinged” to find it, so on July 1, 2008, the detectives obtained and executed a search warrant for the location, which was an apartment in Chicago.

That same day, July 1, the detectives contacted the Chicago Police Department, requesting surveillance of the phone’s location and giving them Counts’s general description of the suspect, including that he was Asian. Chicago police officer Brian McKendry visited the location, a three-flat, and saw by the entrance a package addressed to Meanith Huon in the upper unit. Thinking that name sounded Asian, McKendry relayed it to the detectives, who accessed the photo from Huon’s driver’s license and also found more pictures of him online. Huon looked like the man seen with Counts in a surveillance video from a bar, and other information the detectives had found online matched details given by Counts. The detectives obtained from a Madison County circuit judge a warrant to search Huon’s apartment in Chicago.

Before the day ended, the two detectives traveled to Chicago and executed the search warrant with backup from Chicago police officers (including McKendry). In a trash bag in a closet the officers found [872]*872Counts’s purse and the phone Huon had used to call her. Huon was arrested and interviewed at a Chicago police station by Detective Marconi with Officer McKendry present for part of the time. After Miranda warnings, Huon said that Counts had agreed to “hang out” with him for $10 to $20 an hour and willingly performed oral sex but then threatened to claim she had been forcefully assaulted unless he paid her $500. She got out of his car voluntarily, he added.

Huon was charged in the Circuit Court of Madison County with criminal sexual assault. See 720 ILCS 5/12-13(a)(l) (since renumbered as 5/ll-1.20(a)(l)). The sheriffs department issued a press release announcing the arrest and saying that Huon would be transferred to Madison County, where the investigation was continuing.

Huon filed a motion to suppress, arguing, among other things, that the detectives had lacked exigent circumstances to justify seeking records from Sprint without a search warrant. Huon argued that the detectives did not know he had called other women until after they reviewed the phone records. Detectives Marconi and Vucich and Chicago officer McKendry testified at the hearing.

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597 F. App'x 868, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/huon-v-mudge-ca7-2015.