Woman Who Spent 2 Weeks In Prison Due To Mistaken Identity Files Lawsuit

A California woman who spent two weeks in prison after she was mistaken for a fugitive last year filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the city of Los Angeles and two police departments.

Bethany Farber, of Calabasas, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on April 16, 2021, while waiting for a flight to Mexico to visit her family, after police mistook her for a fugitive from Texas with the same name who had an arrest warrant, CBS News reported.

Farber filed a lawsuit seeking monetary damages accusing that the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and Los Angeles Airport Police have violated her civil rights.

Even though Farber said she has never traveled to Texas, she was accused of lying and was held without bail for 13 days at Lynwood Women’s Jail before being released on April 28, 2021, the lawsuit alleged.

"This was an experience that no one should go through, especially a law-abiding citizen," Farber said in a press conference Tuesday.

The lawsuit also accuses the authorities of false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence.

During the arrest, police reportedly did not verify Faber's social security number or driver's license even though she told them that it could be a case of mistaken identity. "They didn't do the basics of their job to confirm the identity," Farber's attorney Rodney Diggs said. However, LAPD took her fingerprint and photo during the booking.

While Farber was at Lynwood Women's Jail, she was "stripped of her privacy," and faced "things that she could never have imagined," the lawsuit said. According to her lawyers, the ordeal in the prison has caused her "severe stress, anxiety, emotional injury, and mental anguish."

When Farber was in custody, her grandmother had a stress-induced stroke and died just days after she was released. The lawsuit alleged that her untimely death was due to the stress caused by Farber's arrest.

The fugitive who had the arrest warrant had a criminal history and police had her fingerprints in their database, her attorney said. "This is a case of negligence at its highest level and also a violation of Miss Farber's rights," the attorney added.

Besides seeking monetary damages, Farber said she hopes to bring a change within the judicial system. "There’s a lot of people out there who this is happening to who don’t have anyone advocating for them. They don’t have their family fighting for them every day, and they’re in jail, wrongfully, their lives are being dismantled," Farber said, as reported by KTLA.