Federal agents admit their mistake after falsely arresting a Phoenix woman outside her home. Fingerprint analysis confirms that she is not the fugitive they were looking for. The case has been dismissed, but the woman seeks accountability.
PHOENIX — Federal agents now admit they made a mistake, and the fingerprints don’t match, after an ABC15 Investigation into the false arrest of a Phoenix woman outside her home last month.
ABC15 contacted the U.S Attorney’s Office and U.S. Marshal Service to find out what caused the federal government to make such a major mistake and wrongfully arrest a 66-year-old woman at gunpoint. According to McCarthy, six federal agents arrested her at gunpoint outside her Phoenix home in March. She said officers threatened to tase her when she tried to tell them they had the wrong person.
At the identity hearing, originally scheduled for April 9, McCarthy was going to have to prove she wasn’t Carole Anne Rozak, a wanted fugitive from another state she’d never lived in. A warrant for her arrest was issued on April 15, 1999, in Oklahoma, and ABC15 has learned McCarthy’s false arrest all stems from the two-decades-old outstanding warrant.As we’ve previously reported, McCarthy was fingerprinted when federal officers first took her into custody in Arizona last month.
McCarthy also said investigators initially said her fingerprints matched, but the story changed the following day in court when prosecutors told the judge they didn’t have anyone to analyze her prints.ABC15 continues to press for answers as to how something like that even happens.According to a recently filed federal court motion in Oklahoma, “Rozak had stolen Penny Burns identity in a way that made Penny Burns look like Rozak on paper.
False Arrest Mistaken Identity Phoenix Fingerprint Analysis Fugitive Accountability
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