City pays $650,000 to 4 people wrongfully arrested by former Louisville police detective

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The city of Louisville agreed to pay four people a total of $650,000 for being wrongfully arrested by a former Louisville police detective to settle a lawsuit that has been pending since 2010.

Former Louisville Metro Police Detective Crystal Marlowe arrested more than a dozen people over a two-year period who could not have committed the crimes either because they were already in jail at the time or because of other evidence that supported their innocence.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit were Vaughn Carter, Robert Mitchem, Dale Todd and Rodshaud White.

Carter, for example, claimed he was charged with a robbery he did not commit, was in jail for three days and had to spend time and money expunging his record after the charges were eventually dismissed.

In one of the other cases, not a part of the settlement, a University of Louisville student who was wrongfully arrested was awarded $2.25 million by a jury in 2019.

In December 2007, Marlowe issued an arrest warrant for Tiffany Washington, then a UofL student, after the detective said a robbery victim was able to "positively ID" her as one of three perpetrators. But Washington had bank statements, pictures, telephone records and eyewitness testimony showing that she was in Henderson County, 130 miles away, on the night of the robbery.

Washington spent five days in jail before her $50,000 cash bond was reduced to an amount she was able to post. A grand jury chose not to indict her.

However, the Kentucky Court of Appeals threw out the verdict, ruling that Washington’s lawsuit should have been dismissed by the trial judge because the suit was filed after the state’s one-year statute of limitations.

The final four cases remained unresolved and were heading to trial but instead settled April 22 with the city agreeing to pay $650,000 to the plaintiffs, with the stipulation that Metro Government was not admitting guilt, according to the settlement obtained by WDRB News under the Kentucky Open Records Act.

"The case is over to the satisfaction of the four remaining plaintiffs," said attorney John Bahe, who represents the plaintiffs along with co-counsel Ryan Vantrease. "We feel that justice was done. They are looking forward to moving on with their lives."

Marlowe was fired in 2011 after a police investigation showed she arrested several defendants — many of them juveniles — for crimes they did not commit.

The lawsuits have lingered in court for years on several motions to dismiss, but the appeals court ruled in 2017 there was enough evidence supporting the claim of malicious prosecution against Marlowe for the case to move forward.

Some of the cases were dismissed for various reasons, including time limitations.

The lawsuits accused Marlowe of lying in court, or coercing false identifications from witnesses, leading to wrongful arrests. Some of the people Marlowe arrested were out of town when the crimes occurred, while others were in jail on other charges.

Marlowe is no longer working as a police officer.

She was fired in January 2011 for what then-Police Chief Robert White called "blatant disregard" for departmental rules.