A friend of a suspected murder victim from New Hope has filed a federal lawsuit against the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, claiming that authorities arrested him in retaliation for going to the FBI about the alleged murder.
Paul Vega was friends with Manuel Vasquez, a 40-year-old whose burned remains were discovered in the yard of his Windchase Drive home last July by the FBI and the sheriff’s office.
Vasquez’s wife, Christina Martinez, has been charged with murder. Vasquez’s mother-in-law, Lydia Martinez, has been charged as an accessory after the fact.
Vega, in his lawsuit, claims that the sheriff’s office arrested him in retaliation for going to the FBI with information about Vasquez’s disappearance. He also claims that he has been harassed by the LCSO ever since.
The lawsuit — filed in the U.S. District Northern District of Mississippi a week ago today — names Sheriff Mike Arledge, Capt. Ryan Rickert and Dep. Tony Cooper as defendants.
Vega asks for $750,000 in the suit.
The LCSO arrested Vega for Vasquez’s murder without a warrant on the basis of evidence they should have known was false, according to the lawsuit. Vega claims that after he was arrested, he was repeatedly threatened with the death penalty and given the details of Vasquez’s “gruesome” murder, causing him to break down in tears, according to the lawsuit.
Authorities say Vasquez was shot and killed in his home. His body was then burned and the remains spread through his yard, according to authorities.
The deputies should have known Vega was not involved in Vasquez’s murder, according to the federal lawsuit, because the only evidence they had was a letter allegedly written by Vasquez’s mother-in-law, Lydia Martinez, which stated that “Paul” had helped dispose of the body. Deputies were in possession of Vega and Martinez’s cell phones and could have discovered they had never been in contact, the lawsuit states.
Martinez later told authorities she did not write the letter, according to the lawsuit.
Vega claims that since his arrest, he has seen LCSO cars parked near his home, as though keeping an eye on the house, the lawsuit states. Daniel Waide, Vega’s attorney, told The Dispatch that this has happened regularly since the arrest.
Before a missing persons report was filed for Vasquez in July 2015, Vega had continually gone to the LCSO trying to report his suspicions, only to have deputies not return calls, according to the lawsuit. Finally Vega went to the FBI and reported that he believed Vasquez to have been victim of a crime. After the FBI became involved, authorities discovered Vasquez’s remains and the LCSO began investigating his murder.
No trial date has been set for the lawsuit, according to an online federal court database.
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