Jeffrey Wolgast v. John Richards

389 F. App'x 494
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 9, 2010
Docket08-1724
StatusUnpublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 389 F. App'x 494 (Jeffrey Wolgast v. John Richards) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jeffrey Wolgast v. John Richards, 389 F. App'x 494 (6th Cir. 2010).

Opinion

OPINION

HELENE N. WHITE, Circuit Judge.

Defendant John Richards appeals the district court order denying his motion for summary judgment in this action asserting § 1983 and state-law claims. We DISMISS in part, VACATE in part, AFFIRM in part, and REMAND for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The district court’s April 2008 opinion provides a thorough account of the relevant background facts:

At 10:27 p.m. on May 29, 2004, central dispatch for the Tawas Police Authority (“TPA”) in Tawas, Michigan, received a telephone call from a male who stated that the Crossroads Bar & Grill (“Crossroads”) was going to “blow tonight,” and then the man hung up the phone. The exact content of the call, as later transcribed, was as follows:
There’s a place in Tawas City called the Corssroads [sic]. That place is going to f* * *ing blow tonight. Nobody’ll f* * *ing believe me. It’s going to blow tonight.
The call, which was made from a pay phone near Freel’s Market (“Freel’s”), was interpreted as a bomb threat. Plaintiffs son was employed by Freel’s and he worked at that location the night in question, with his shift ending at approximately 9:00 p.m. Defendant Richards contacted Officer Mark Ferguson (“Officer Ferguson”) and together they proceeded to the area near the market where the pay phone is located. No one was near the phone and the officers were unable to locate anyone who had observed any recent use of the phone.
Since the officers were aware that Plaintiff Jeffrey Wolgast had made calls to TPA central dispatch complaining about excessive noise from Crossroads in the past, they suspected Plaintiff may have made the bomb threat as well. The officers’ summary report indicates that after the officers did not locate anyone at the payphone, Defendant Richards called the TPA central dispatch and asked them to “pull up prior calls made by the Wolgast’s [sic] and see if they sounded the same.” The incident report goes on to say that “[Defendant] *496 Richards was then advised, by Dispatcher Golimbiewski, that Dispatcher Soroka stated that it did sound like one of the Wolgast’s [sic].” The report also notes that “Dispatcher’s [sic] Golimbiewski and Soroka are the midnight crew at Central Dispatch and has [sic] talked to the Wolgast’s [sic] on numerous occasions when they have called in regarding loud Music at Cross Roads.”
The officers proceeded to Plaintiffs residence, where they questioned Plaintiff, his wife, and his son, all of whom denied making the call. The officers indicated to Plaintiff and his family that they would be sending tapes of Plaintiffs previous phone complaints and the tape of the bomb threat to the Michigan State Police crime lab for voice analysis and that, if the voices matched, Plaintiff would be charged with a felony. Although initially considered a suspect, Plaintiffs son, who had also complained about the noise at Crossroads in the past, was eliminated from suspicion by the officers after his mother stated that her son was home at the time the call was made.
Defendant Richards .prepared an incident report that detailed his findings. The report documented his conversations with Plaintiff, his wife, and his son. In pertinent part, the report stated:
[Defendant] Richards spoke to [Plaintiff] after speaking to [Plaintiffs wife] and [son]. [Plaintiff] admitted that he was out on a bicycle ride and that he had ridden down US-23 past Freel’s Market. [Plaintiff] stated that he returned home from his bicycle ride approximately twenty to twenty five minutes prior to Officers [sic] arrival. It should be noted that the call came in at 10: 26 p.m. and Officers arrived at [Plaintiff’s] residence at [lOffl p.m.]. 1 [Plaintiff] claimed that he did not call 911 from the pay phone and that if it was him, he would just [sic] called from his own residence. [Defendant] Richards advised that the caller was on tape and that it would be sent to the lab to be compared to [Plaintiffs] prior complaints about Cross Roads. [Defendant] Richards then asked [Plaintiff] what the outcome of the tapes would be and [Plaintiff stated] that it would come back as not being his voice.
(emphasis in original). Sometime after Defendant Richards instigated the investigation, he left the department for a position with the Michigan State Police. As a result, Defendant Parent continued the investigation.
More than two months later, on August 4, 2004, a warrant was issued for Plaintiffs arrest. The affidavit in support of the arrest warrant was signed and submitted by Defendant Parent. Defendant Richards, however, drafted both the police report and the affidavit signed by Defendant Parent. The affidavit states:
1. This incident occurred on 05-29-04 at approximately 10:26 p.m. This incident occurred at 1139 W. Lake St. (Freel’s Market payphone), City of Tawas City, County of Iosco, State of Michigan.
2. Bomb Threat: At 10:26 p.m. Central Dispatch received a 911 call stating that there was a place in Tawas City by the name of Cross Roads and that it was going to blow, that it was going to blow tonight. The caller then hung up the phone.
*497 3. Dispatcher Soroka works the midnight shift and has taken several phone calls from Wolgast in the past. Cpl. Richards was advised that the caller of the bomb threat sounded as [sic] the same as Wolgast.
4. Evidence: Copy of bomb threat, prior calls made by Wolgast and radio/phone traffic between Central Dispatch and Cpl. Richards. It should be noted that Wolgast calls into Central Dispatch numerous times a month concerning loud music at Cross Roads Bar and Grill. Cpl. Richards has listened to the prior calls made by Wol-gast and the actual bomb threat. 2 Cpl. Richards believes the caller to be the same on all the calls.
5. The suspect is Jeffrey Allen Wol-gast, w/m, DOB: 11-14-56. Cpl. Richards spoke to Wolgast at his residence, on 05-29-04. Wolgast stated that he was .out on a bicycle ride at the time the 911 call came in, and had ridden his bicycle by Freels Market. Wolgast stated that he did not make the bomb threat.
Police arrested Plaintiff on August 16, 2004, for violation of Michigan Compiled Laws 750.411a, false report or threat of bomb, a felony carrying a maximum punishment of four years in prison and a $2,000 fine. The county dismissed the charge on September 28, 2004, the day on which the preliminary examination was scheduled to take place, because, according to the Complaint, the dispatchers could not identify Plaintiffs voice. 3

(ROA II 993-96.) (brackets in original, internal citations omitted).

In October 2005, Jeffrey Wolgast, pro se, filed this action alleging various federal constitutional and state tort claims.

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Bluebook (online)
389 F. App'x 494, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jeffrey-wolgast-v-john-richards-ca6-2010.