SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge again tossed a lawsuit brought by a man who claimed police used false evidence to paint him as a gang member and keep him in custody for the murder of his daughter’s pimp.
Senior U.S. District Judge William Orrick dismissed the case with prejudice early Thursday morning, citing a lack of concrete proof of falsified evidence.
The plaintiff, Barry Gilton, claims that in 2012, Calvin Sneed, an alleged gang member from Los Angeles, was pimping Gilton’s then-17-year-old daughter. Sneed came to Gilton's home in San Francisco to pick up the daughter and take her to Los Angeles, where she had been staying. Gilton confronted Sneed near his home before Sneed was shot in the head and killed by a gunshot fired from an unknown shooter in a silver SUV that had pulled up beside Sneed’s car.
Gilton spent seven years in custody before being acquitted of his role in the murder. He says police used fake evidence to accuse him of being a gang member to keep him in custody and sued the city of San Francisco on claims of fabrication of evidence, malicious prosecution, conspiracy and failure to intervene, among others.
Gilton claims police Sgt. Damon Jackson and Officer Reese Burrows falsified evidence that Gilton was a member of a racketeering enterprise, the Central Divisadero Playas, and that the city and county of San Francisco, Jackson and Burrows maliciously prosecuted Gilton, depriving him of his civil rights and depriving his children of family relationships.
Three key pieces of fake evidence were used to prosecute him, Gilton claims: A phony Central Divisadero Playas organizational chart was used during his trial to show Gilton had gang ties; police falsely said he visited a known gang hideout, which Gilton says was actually his grandmother’s house; and police coerced a witness identified as JB to testify that Gilton and his family members were part of the gang — and “repeatedly threatened” JB with a lengthy prison sentence if he refused.
Police were “intimately familiar” with the Central Divisadero Playas gang and knew these pieces of evidence were false, Gilton says.
Orrick wrote that Gilton provided sufficient circumstantial evidence that the defendants falsely accused him, hadn't plausibly alleged causation because he couldn't prove he was indicted because of those three pieces of evidence.
The government had other evidence of Gilton’s involvement with members of the Central Divisadero Playas, Orrick wrote; Gilton had friends and family that were members of the gang and had been spotted at a known gang hideout at 1458 Grove Street, and was spotted in a rap video with members displaying a gang sign.
“None of those facts made him a member of CDP, of course, but he was undisputedly part of a community where many individuals were CDP members and he associated with those individuals regularly,” Orrick wrote. “And, more to the point, he participated in the murder of Calvin Sneed with two active CDP members, Antonio Gilton and Alfonzo Williams, who later pleaded guilty to murdering Sneed in aid of racketeering.”
That evidence formed the basis of the government’s case against Gilton, Orrick wrote, not the “three acts of alleged fabrication,” such as the organizational chart or the false intel that Gilton’s grandmother’s home was a known gang hideout.
“The murder by known CDP members in which Gilton participated and his past relationship with CDP members are obviously material. The organizational chart, JB’s testimony, and the portrayal of his grandmother’s house are, at best, incidental to the other evidence.,” Orrick wrote. “Gilton cannot plausibly show that ‘the act’ — here, the purported fabrication of evidence — ’was the cause in fact of the deprivation of liberty,’ much less the ‘proximate cause’ or ‘legal cause’ of the injury.”
Orrick wrote that all of this evidence established probable cause for the government to indict Gilton for the murder of Sneed, and there was no evidence of malicious prosecution.
“While this evidence was insufficient to establish that Gilton had committed a racketeering act prior to the Sneed murder, it served as probable cause for his prosecution as a member of CDP. If Gilton had not participated in Sneed’s murder, there would not have been probable cause to prosecute him as a CDP member. But given the facts here, as alleged and noticed, there was ample probable cause to proceed,” Orrick wrote.
Because the case was dismissed with prejudice, Gilton cannot refile his claim again and the case was closed.
Fulvio Cajina, Gilton's lawyer, said he and his team "respectfully disagree" with the judge's ruling and are considering an appeal.
"We believe Mr. Gilton has properly pleaded that San Francisco officers were aware that he was not a gang member and proceeded to support his malicious prosecution despite that knowledge," Cajina said in a statemen to Courthouse News. "We are particularly troubled that we weren't allowed to obtain discovery as to what information was given to the grand jury to support the false allegation that Mr. Gilton was a gang member."
Jen Kwart, communications director for the San Francisco Police Department, offered straightforward remarks on the ruling: “We are pleased the court agreed that SFPD did not act improperly when investigating this matter.”
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