Officer Found Not Liable for Excessive Force During Arrest

An Addison police officer was found not liable of using excessive force in taking an Addison woman into custody for failing to appear in court on a post-conviction proceeding for theft. In a case tried in federal court before Judge James Holderman, Tom Weiler successfully defended the officer against the woman’s claims. She contended that her wrists were injured during the arrest preventing her from working as a legal secretary. Tom Weiler called her former employer as a witness and was able to demonstrate that the lawyer had fired her after his accountant found that numerous checks had been improperly altered while the plaintiff worked for him. Tom was also able to present evidence that the woman’s claim that she attended law school was not true and that she had represented herself as having a law degree to her neighbors when she was the president of her homeowners association. A record keeper from DePaul testified that they had no record of the plaintiff ever having attended DePaul or getting a law degree.