Man Sues American Airlines After Spending 17 Days In Jail Over 'Mistaken Identity'

An Arizona man has filed a lawsuit against American Airlines after being forced to spend more than two weeks behind bars and claimed that he was wrongfully imprisoned over mistaken identity.

Michael Lowe filed a lawsuit Monday in Tarrant County, Texas, for being jailed in a New Mexico jail for 17 days after he was wrongfully identified by the carrier as a suspect in an airport burglary.

Lowe's arrest stemmed from a burglary at a duty-free store at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) on May 12, 2020, a crime he claims to have not committed, Law & Crime reported.

Lowe was at the airport that day on a layover for his flight from Arizona to Nevada. Surveillance footage of the incident showed the suspect was a passenger of American flight 2248, the same flight Lowe was traveling. Investigators then obtained a search warrant requesting the airline to produce "any and all recorded travel data for all individuals" on that flight, the lawsuit said.

However, Lowe accused that the airline only produced information about him, and based on that, the investigators issued felony and misdemeanor arrest warrants against him.

Lowe was arrested on July 4, 2021, while he was visiting his friends in Tucumcari, New Mexico after cops arrived to investigate a reported disturbance at the Fourth of July event he was attending. When the officers ran an identity check on him, they found the outstanding warrants and he was taken into custody.

"That was a hasty decision on behalf of American Airlines to offer up one suspect and one suspect only, and without that, we wouldn't be talking. This wouldn't have happened," Scott Palmer, Lowe's attorney, told ABC News.

Lowe detailed that "the terror" he had to experience in Quay County jail for 17 days was "existential" and he lived with "a constant fear of confrontation or abuse" as "violent outbursts" occurred in the facility. Lowe reportedly had to sleep on the concrete floor and accused that the jail did not follow proper COVID-19 protocols.

"Placed in a [COVID-19] quarantine pod, the facility's contempt for the health, safety, and well-being of its inmates were immediately obvious, as not a single staff member nor inmate wore a face covering," the lawsuit said.

Lowe was eventually released from jail without officials providing him with any explanation or additional information.

The detective who initially believed that Lowe was the actual suspect was convinced later when he compared Lowe's mugshot with the surveillance video, the lawsuit alleged. Meanwhile, according to reports, the actual suspect behind the crime has still not been caught.