A motion for summary judgment filed on behalf of two Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office investigators in Paul Vega’s wrongful arrest case against the county includes a transcript of a conversation where Vega was accused of assisting in the July 2015 murder of Manuel Vasquez.
LCSO deputies arrested Vega on July 22, 2015, and released him the next day without charging him. He has not been criminally indicted in the case, either.
Vega filed a federal lawsuit against Lowndes County Sheriff Mike Arledge and investigators Tony Cooper and Ryan Rickert for wrongful arrest. The case is still pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Division of Mississippi in Aberdeen.
He is seeking damages for an alleged violation of his constitutional rights, as well as compensatory and punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial.
Vega was friends with Manuel Vasquez, a 40-year-old whose burned remains were discovered in the yard of his Windchase Drive home by federal and county investigators in July 2015.
Vasquez’s wife, Christina Martinez, has been charged with his murder. Vasquez’s mother-in-law, Lydia Martinez, has been charged as an accessory after the fact.
The summary judgment motion, filed in November by Jackson attorney Jason Dare, seeks qualified immunity for Cooper and Rickert, which would remove them as individually liable from the case. It includes a transcript of a July 22, 2015, conversation between LCSO Det. Darrel Nabors and Lydia Martinez.
During the conversation, Lydia admits to shooting Vasquez in the head, burning his body and disposing of his remains near a basketball goal at his home. She said Vega assisted her.
That portion of the transcript reads:
“Detective Nabors: Ok, did you do this by yourself?
Lydia Martinez: No, Paul Vega.
Detective Nabors: Paul Vega? Was he there the whole time this went on?
Lydia Martinez: Uh huh (affirmative response).”
Vega was arrested later that evening and released about 11 hours later.
An affidavit from Cooper, which includes a day-by-day synopsis of the case, said “there was not enough evidence to charge Paul Vega” at the time of his release.
Dare, quoting other cases in the motion to support that officers had probable cause at the time to arrest Vega, noted that, “in making a determination of probable cause, police officers ‘are neither required to be perfect nor do they always have to err on the side of caution'” for fear of being sued.
Daniel Waide, a Hattiesburg attorney representing Vega, said he will file a response to the motion for summary judgment by March or April after having time to conduct discovery.
However, he questioned the recording’s usefulness for the motion.
“The recording of Lydia does not sound like it reads,” Waide said. “I’ve listened to the recording, and I don’t think it’s as definitive as they seem to think it is.”
Dare’s motion also notes that Cooper was not on scene for Vega’s arrest, and Rickert, while on scene, was not personally involved in arresting Vega.
“There is no evidence that either of these Defendants, in their individual capacity, actively participated in the arrest of (Vega),” the motion says.
Dare goes on to say in the motion that Rickert and Cooper cannot be individually responsible for Vega’s claim of excessive force, which he claims in his complaint injured his shoulder, because neither detective was involved in his arrest.
Waide said the case, for Vega, is to ensure that officers act properly in future incidents.
“Regardless of how the judge rules on the motion, Mr. Vega’s whole purpose is to make sure law enforcement does their job properly,” Waide said. “Immunity or not, he just wants to make sure law enforcement follows the rules.”
Dare declined to comment on the record about the case outside of the content of his motion.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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