Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 21, 1994 TAG: 9402210024
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For the first time in nearly three weeks, Patricia Ann Collins was enjoying a day off from her job as a convenience store clerk when the police showed up at her door on June 19, 1992.
Collins was arrested with little explanation and carted off to jail, where she was held without bond for nearly two weeks - for a crime she didn't commit.
Collins still can't talk about the experience without breaking down.
"To this day, every time I see a police officer I'm scared to death. I still cry. I'm just so frightened," she said. "I got handcuffed in front of my children. I felt degraded and abused by a justice system that I used to respect."
This is not the plot for a television movie, but a tale of mistaken identity between two women who share the same name, but seem to have little else in common.
Collins blames the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, and she's fighting back.
She has filed a $100,000 suit alleging that negligence by Franklin County Sheriff W.Q. Overton and his staff caused her to be falsely arrested and held in the Orange County, Fla., jail for 12 days and 11 nights.
Collins lived in Franklin County with her ex-husband for 11 years, but she moved to Florida in early 1991. Overton would talk only briefly about the case, but according to federal court records, here's what happened:
On Dec. 17, 1991, an undercover drug agent went to the Hilltop Trailer Park in Franklin County and purchased cocaine from a woman identified as Patricia Collins.
In the police report, the drug dealer was described as age 32, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 130 pounds. Based on evidence from the undercover drug purchase, a Franklin County grand jury handed down a cocaine distribution indictment on June 1, 1992, in the name of Patricia Ann Collins.
The indictment did not include a description of the suspect.
On June 19, 1992, Ray Hundley of the Franklin County Sheriff's office sent information to the Ocoee, Fla., police asking them to arrest a Patricia Ann Collins, age 37. She was described as 5 feet tall, 148 pounds, with green eyes and brown hair.
Ocoee police officers went to Collins' Florida home and charged her with being a fugitive from justice.
"I didn't know what was going on. I just kept telling them that I wasn't this person. I begged them to let me call Virginia," Collins recalled in a telephone interview. "It was an experience ain't no one would believe."
Ocoee police held her without bond while waiting for her extradition to Franklin County.
The living conditions in the Florida jail were unbearable, Collins said. She was held in a room without air conditioning along with about 40 other women. There were so many prisoners that Collins had to sleep on the floor.
On June 29, 1992, the Franklin County Sheriff's office told the Ocoee police that they had arrested the wrong person. The real drug culprit eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Collins, who had no criminal record, was so relieved to be out of jail that she didn't wait for her brother to come pick her up.
"They gave me my things in a brown paper bag and I just started walking," she said.
With the Florida sun bearing down on her, Collins soon became thirsty. But she wasn't about to stop at any of the roadside stores for a drink.
"I felt like a criminal, I looked like a criminal carrying that bag," she said. "I was afraid the people in the store might accuse me of something else."
Details are sketchy as to how this mistake happened, but Overton admitted that an innocent person was jailed.
"It was just the case of two people having the same name," he said.
The sheriff said he didn't know how often false arrests happen, "but this one happened to us."
Overton said little else because he's waiting for the state to assign him an attorney in the suit.
Collins originally filed her suit in June 1993 in Orange County, Fla., Circuit Court. The Florida judge ordered that the case be moved to federal court in Roanoke.
In addition to Overton, Hundley and David King, an investigator with the Henry County's sheriff office, were listed as defendants in the suit. King helped in the undercover drug purchase.
Collins said the false arrest ruined her reputation in Ocoee, causing her to lose her job. When the money ran out, Collins and her three children had to move to a smaller house in a rundown neighborhood.
"It's a close-knit community and no one wants to help someone they think is involved with drugs," she said. "My living standards are down. I had to go back to living on food stamps."
Jack Nants, the Florida attorney who initially filed Collins' suit, said he feels certain that she will win the case.
"The lady was just as innocent as pure fallen snow," he said. "We're going to get her some money."
by CNB