Article courtesy of CopBlock, written by Asa J.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court that is still working its way through the legal system, a Pennsylvania woman claims that New Castle police officers violated her civil and constitutional rights during a traffic stop back in Nov. 2013.
Kimberlee Carbone says she was pulled over under the pretext of not “apply[ing] her turn signal at least 100 feet before the intersection” as per Pennsylvania law, before she was forced to endure five hours of humiliation. Officer David Maiella had made the stop after seeing a man “briefly enter an apartment” and then get into Carbone’s car that he suspected of buying drugs, according to the lawsuit.
Fifteen minutes into the stop, New Castle Police Chief Robert Salem and Lawrence County District Attorney Joshua Lamancusa made their way to the scene and interrogated the two about whether or not they were in possession of illegal substances.
Carbone insisted that she and her passenger had no drugs but the officers didn’t believe her, the lawsuit says, so the cops then fabricated a story that they smelled the odor of burnt marijuana wafting from the car. Carbone then arrested her for driving under the influence without having a sobriety test administered, and the officers conducted a pat down and search of the vehicle that found nothing.
According to the lawsuit, once at the Lawrence County Correctional Center, Carbone was strip-searched and forced to “bend over, spread her buttocks, and cough” before two corrections officers made the claim that they saw a plastic bag protruding from her vagina.
Carbone was then instructed by her to “prod her personal areas by inserting her fingers into her vagina,” bend over, spread her buttocks, and cough again as she was “crying hysterically,” the lawsuit states. No drugs were found at the jail so the officers sent Carbone to Jameson Hospital for “an internal examination of her body cavities… for a possible overdose, rectal packing and/or oral intake of a controlled substance.”