Two men falsely accused of drug possession and trafficking are suing Portage County Sheriff Bruce D. Zuchowski and three of his deputies in federal court, asking for a jury to determine unspecified damages.
At issue is an Aug. 29, 2023, traffic stop conducted by Portage County sheriff’s deputies. Zephaniah Robinson and his passenger, Jack Metcalf, were charged with trafficking in cocaine and with possession of cocaine, both first-degree felonies.
However, the county prosecutor’s office abandoned the case when the alleged cocaine in the back of the 2018 Buick Encore turned out to be baking soda that Robinson’s sister, who owned the car, had sprinkled in the back of the vehicle to combat a previous water problem, according to a filing in Portage County Common Pleas Court.
In the meantime, the two men, both of them Black, were arrested and incarcerated in the Portage County Jail. Robinson was released on a $75,000 personal recognizance bond with conditions two weeks later, but Metcalf remained incarcerated until Oct. 11, when he also posted a $75,000 PR bond.
Prosecutors didn’t drop the case until mid-November. In addition to jail time, Robinson and Metcalf had endured almost three months of court appearances, electronic monitoring devices and, according to the federal lawsuit, the loss of their jobs.
Robinson and Metcalf are now suing Zuchowski, Deputy Sean Bradley, Deputy Robert Paolucci and Deputy Anthony Zappone in U.S. District Court.
“There was no justification for the framing of and creating false evidence against the plaintiffs,” their attorney, Eddie Sipplen of Akron, stated in an Aug. 29 lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division.
The pair are seeking compensatory and punitive damages, declaratory and injunctive relief, attorney fees, costs and other relief, the amounts to be decided by a jury.
Specifically, they allege that their right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure by the use of force was violated, that they were falsely imprisoned, that they suffered malicious prosecution, that their due process rights were abused, that the government is liable for its actions and that the deputies engaged in “willful, wanton and reckless conduct.”
The Portage County Sheriff’s Office did not return The Portager’s request for comment.
No court date has been set.
How the false accusations happened
The incident started as a routine traffic stop Zappone conducted on I-76 westbound near Tallmadge Road. The car Robinson was driving allegedly had no sideview mirrors and an improperly displayed license plate, the lawsuit states.
Bradley radioed to Zappone that he believed the person in the vehicle was a man wanted for second-degree felony burglary, the lawsuit states.
Armed with that information, Zappone decided to treat the routine traffic stop as a felony stop and allegedly ordered Robinson and Metcalf out of the vehicle at gunpoint. The law enforcement officers only realized that neither Robinson nor Metcalf were the suspect after Bradley and his K-9 unit had arrived.
By that time, the lawsuit states, the K-9 unit had alerted the officers that there were narcotics in the vehicle Robinson was driving. They searched the car and located “a large amount of white powder behind the driver’s seat.”
According to the federal lawsuit, Paolucci used standard-issue narcotics identification kits (NIK) to conduct several tests on the substance, looking for evidence of methamphetamine and cocaine. Receiving negative readings, he allegedly discarded the tests in a trash bag he kept in his cruiser.
Despite the negative results, the lawsuit alleges that Bradley wrote in his report that “the white powdery substance tested positive for cocaine in two separate locations.”
In his report, Zappone wrote that prior to stopping Robinson, “I observed him lean back and reach into the back seat. I also observed the driver reach underneath his seat or what appeared to be reaching in the glovebox.”
Robinson and Metcalf both denied possessing cocaine or any other contraband, but both were arrested, charged with first-degree felonies of trafficking in cocaine and possession of cocaine, and jailed. Robinson was also given a warning for display of plates and no rearview mirror.
According to the lawsuit filed in federal court, the officers impounded the vehicle and towed it to the sheriff’s office “so that the deputies could retrieve the white powder from the car.” There, they used a vacuum to collect more than 65 grams of white powder as evidence and sent it to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI).
On Sept. 9, the sheriff’s office posted information about the arrest on Facebook, claiming that the field test had yielded positive for cocaine. But the BCI’s Oct. 29 report indicated that the evidence contained “no controlled substance.”
Attorney appeals to ‘common sense’
During a Dec. 4 interview with The Portager, Sipplen said the sheriff’s office needs “to better train the officers on how to deal with situations like that, and they need to stop automatically assuming that every young Black person that they stop is a criminal.”
Trained officers would know the difference between carpet cleaner or air freshener and cocaine, which has a “totally different” texture and color, Sipplen said.
“Common sense should have told them the substance was Arm and Hammer air freshener, not cocaine,” Sipplen said. “They didn’t care. They had two young Black men, and they would charge them with it anyway.”
Responding to The Portager’s request for comment last December, Portage County Chief Deputy Ralph Spidalieri disagreed with Sipplen’s statements.
“That is a defense attorney’s opinion. You can have an opinion, and I can have an opinion. We’re all Americans,” the chief deputy said. “If he wants to have an opinion based on the fact that he’s a defense attorney, I can’t control what he wants to say. You can’t control what anyone says.”
Neither Spidalieri nor anyone else from the sheriff’s office responded to The Portager’s Sept. 20 and 23 requests for comment.
In November, the county prosecutor’s office abandoned its case against the two men, both of whom had already “lost their jobs and were precluded from obtaining other employment due to being falsely arrested,” the lawsuit states.
They had also had to cope for months with electronic monitoring devices they’d had to pay for themselves, court fees, bond, felony charges of trafficking and possessing cocaine, multiple legal proceedings, actual time in jail and more. Additionally, the owner of the vehicle had had to cope for months with her car being towed and impounded.
Judge criticized deputies
Before the original case was dropped, it went to court in November. Portage County Common Pleas Court Judge Laurie Pittman was also concerned about the mix-up and, according to court transcripts, said the sheriff’s office would do well to invest in better training.
“What also really bothers me, that there were several officers at the scene, including a supervisor who is supposed to be an expert in this area. And they did the NIK tests allegedly, and the NIK test — what were the results? I mean, they obviously don’t know how to do the NIK test. They need to be trained,” Pittman said, according to a Nov. 14 court transcript.
As the on-site supervisor, Zappone should have been overseeing the other officers, she added.
“The fact that the NIK test from the videotapes did not show a positive reading, but the officer thought it did, that gives me great concern. It should give everyone in here great concern, cause any of you could be exposed to the same thing,” Pittman said, according to transcripts detailing Metcalf’s Nov. 15 court proceeding.
Echoing his own statements about Sipplen, in December, Spidalieri said Pittman has the right to her opinion, as well, and can say what she wants like anyone else.
Pittman granted the defendants’ requests for total reimbursement and for their charges to be expunged. However, Metcalf’s court dockets show invoices being sent to him from Nov. 17, 2023, until Jan. 23, 2024, when his outstanding balance was $25. The matter was referred to a third-party collection agent on March 27, 2024.
This story is published through a partnership with the Portager, a community news source in Portage County.