KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — A Ketchikan man is suing the city and its police department over allegations of malicious prosecution stemming from his arrest two years ago.
Walter Reichard’s $4.5 million lawsuit, which also alleges false arrest and official misconduct resulting in injury, was filed this week, The Ketchikan Daily News reported. Reichard, 35, was arrested in September 2014 after a woman who had filed a protective order against him called police to report that he had followed her into a grocery store.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the case, a police officer said he reviewed security footage from the store and determined that Reichard had closely followed the woman and was within 20 feet of her at times. The protective order required him to stay at least 500 feet away from her. Reichard was arraigned on one count of violation of a domestic protective order, but prosecutors eventually dropped the misdemeanor charge.
Reichard had been jailed from his arrest through the case’s dismissal two months later. He said he filed the lawsuit partly because a judge denied his request to have his name removed from Alaska’s online court system. Ketchikan Superior Court Judge Trevor Stephens had ruled that the court does not have the authority to grant Reichard’s request because it did not fit within certain administrative rules, according to court documents.
Ketchikan City Attorney Mitch Seaver said in a Wednesday email that the city has 20 days after service of a summons and complaint to respond to the lawsuit, but that the city had not yet been served. Reichard is planning on hiring an attorney and said he is seeking a jury trial.
