Retiree jailed because of random phone number can proceed with malicious prosecution case [View all]

(CN) — A 75-year-old, retired Canadian school teacher can proceed with a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the City and County of Monterey, California, after he spent 13 days in jail because a sexual predator had randomly used his wife’s phone number to set up an email account.

U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts on Tuesday denied in part the city and county’s motions to dismiss the claims by Richard and Mildred Zilinskas over his arrest and imprisonment in October 2024 when the couple crossed into the U.S. for a daytrip to Niagara Falls.

According to the couple’s complaint filed last year in San Jose, California, Monterey police were investigating a purportedly 48-year-old man from Ohio, who went by the name of David and who had been communicating with a 13-year-old girl over the meetyou.me internet site. The girl had sent the man nude photos of herself and the two had discussed meeting up at a hotel.

The police investigation led to a mail.com email address “David” had used for his meetyou.me account and to a telephone number he had used when he set up the email address shortly before. That telephone number appeared to be randomly chosen and belonged to Mildred Zilinskas.

Although the Monterey police detective investigating the case received a photo of Richard Zilinskas that showed he much older than 48, the detective, Michael Garcia, went to a county prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Billie Gibson, to get an arrest warrant for Zilinskas.

https://www.courthousenews.com/retiree-jailed-because-of-random-phone-number-can-proceed-with-malicious-prosecution-case/