Exclusive: Surveillance video may lead to lawsuit

Monday, August 20, 2007

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In an image from the surveillance video, the detention deputy grabs Marcella Poumoghanie before throwing her to the ground.

TAMPA (Bay News 9) -- In an exclusive story to Bay News 9, the surveillance video of an altercation between a Hillsborough County detention deputy and an inmate is at the center of a potential lawsuit against the sheriff's office.

Marcella Poumoghanie was arrested in November 2006 at her home on an outstanding warrant relating to a DUI charge. After her arrival at the Orient Road jail, the surveillance tape shows a detention deputy pull Poumoghanie by her hair to the ground and then start punching her as she was being booked into jail.

Now Pourmoghanie, 39, has hired an attorney and plans on suing the sheriff's office for excessive force.

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"She (Pourmoghanie) was completely compliant with the instructions of the jail personnel,'' said Pourmoghanie's lawyer Virlyn Moore. "She was sitting there in the chair, look at her demeanor, look at her posture, she was relaxed and she was the victim of an unprovoked attack."

However, a jail official said the deputy followed proper protocol.

"She was trying to take her into an escort position. When the woman resisted the force necessary escalated," said Major Robert Lucas, who is second in command at the jail. "The inmate did wrap herself around her leg. The deputy indicated she was fearful she was going to get bit and she has a right to use a closed fist to try and get the inmate to disengage."

Pourmoghanie (left) is wheeled out of the Orient Road Jail on a stretcher after the incident last November.

After the altercation, Pourmoghanie was taken to a holding cell and checked out by a nurse. But ten minutes later, another inmate in the cell calls for help for Pourmoghanie, whose attorney said she suffered a seizure and could have died at the jail.

The surveillance video shows paramedics, who arrived a short time later, helping stabilize a wobbly Pourmoghanie, who eventually was taken out on a stretcher and taken to a hospital.

Pourmoghanie was initially charged with battery on a law enforcement officer but the state attorney's office later dropped that charge. No disciplinary action was taken against the deputy.

The entire, unedited surveillance tape from the Orient Road Jail is available for viewing on Bay News 9 On Demand, channel 342 on Bright House Networks digital cable.