A repo man from Staten Island in New York City has had charges against him dropped after he was arrested in May for trying to repossess the car of a New York Police Department (NYPD) detective.
Spectrum News NY 1 reports that Jose Rodriguez was going about his job in May when he tried to tow a Nissan Maxima owned by a detective from the 120th Precinct. A bank allegedly wanted to take possession of the car because of three missed loan payments.
However, police surrounded Rodriguez, released the car, and arrested him on a felony charge of possession of stolen property. He was thrown in jail for more than 20 hours before being released.
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It didn’t take long before the felony charge was dropped but authorities continued to pursue the man for a number of misdemeanors, including charges of falsifying business records and possessing police scanners. The Staten Island DA had these misdemeanors dismissed last week after two separate hearings.
According to Rodriguez, he lost thousands of dollars of potential earnings because police clamped his tow truck for almost two weeks. The repo driver added that he was wearing a GoPro camera at the time of his arrest but says police seized the camera and when it was returned to him, all the footage had been deleted. He has already filed a notice of claim against the NYPD and the two officers involved in the incident.
The NYPD has confirmed that its internal affairs bureau is investigating the incident.