Man Claims Cop|Covered Up Beating

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A police officer covered for a motorcycle gangster and a body shop owner who beat a man unconscious and threatened to throw him into a wood chipper, the man claims in court.

Daniel Mancini sued the Cloverdale Police Department, its Officer Michael Campbell, body shop owner Kenneth Roux and alleged "motorcycle gang" member Adam Alvarek on Monday in Federal Court.

Cloverdale is a city of 13,000 in rural Sonoma County. Roux owns a body shop there and Alvarek is a member of the Ghost Riders motorcycle gang, Mancini says in the lawsuit.

He claims that Roux wrongfully blamed him for a burglary of the body shop on Halloween last year and sent Alvarek to Mancini's house to pick him up and bring him to the shop to "talk about the burglary."

When they got to the shop, Mancini says, Roux pulled out a pistol and put on leather gloves. Then both men beat, kicked and stomped him, and Roux told him "he was going to be taken to a wood chipper where he would be chipped and killed for doing the burglary," according to the complaint.

Roux then told Mancini, who by then had a "severely damaged left eye," that he would give him two hours to return the stolen property, and Alvarek dropped him off behind a hardware store, Mancini says.

When Mancini reported the beating to Officer Campbell, he says, Campbell "told Mancini he would talk to Roux for him."

Mancini says that Campbell and Roux are friends, and that Campbell had his car in Roux's shop at the time.

Roux denied all of Mancini's allegations about the assault, Mancini says, and when spoke with Campbell's supervisor he discovered that most of the information he provided was not on Campbell's incident report.

When Mancini told Campbell he wanted the officer to speak to Mancini's private investigator, Campbell told him that his investigator "better not show up in his town," Mancini says in the complaint.

None of the parties could be reached for comment Tuesday.

Mancini seeks medical expenses and punitive damages for assault and battery, false imprisonment, conspiracy and negligence.

He is represented by Richard Sax, of Santa Rosa.

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit