By Dana Williams
As a result, he is suing the Nassau County District Attorney¹s Office and Police Department.
³If you don¹t stand for something, you will fall for anything,² Argueta said. ³What we are trying to do with my situation is highlight the fact that the legal system is wrong because I did nothing wrong, and the county officials need to admit to that.²
Argueta, a 1996 Baldwin High School graduate, announced his intention to file a lawsuit at a press conference in front of the Nassau County Supreme Court building on July 5. He claims that on Feb. 18, 2006, six 3rd Precinct police officers, responding to complaints about a group of rowdy Hispanic patrons at the Majestic Diner, told the table full of troublemakers to leave the diner ‹ and ordered Argueta and his friends out as well, even though they did not know the others and were sitting at a different table. Argueta and his friends are also Hispanic.
Argueta, 29, claimed that he asked the officers to summon the manager, and demanded an explanation of why he was being told to leave. As a result, he said, he was arrested.
³The officers yanked me off of my chair, threw me to the ground, called me names, kneed me, handcuffed me, and dragged me to the front of the diner,² Argueta recounted. ³They never told me I was under arrest, and they never informed me of anything.² Argueta¹s attorney, Frederick K. Brewington, said that he has evidence to support Argueta¹s claims that the officers used ³excessive force,² and that there are witnesses, but Brewington would not provide further details.
Officer Vincent Garcia, a spokesman for the Nassau County Police Department, said the department does not comment on ³pending litigations and lawsuits.²
Argueta, who is a former member of a neighborhood gang in Hempstead called Redondel Pride, is now the president of Struggling to Reunite Our New Generation, or STRONG, a multi-ethnic Long Island organization that addresses youth issues and gang violence. Known as ³Serge,² Argueta visits high schools across the Island to teach young people about the perils of gang life. East Meadow High School is among the schools he has visited.
Since the incident at the Majestic Diner, Argueta said, he has been battling charges of trespassing and resisting arrest, both of which, he contends, are unfounded. Those charges have been re-instituted twice, Brewington explained, adding that each time, the district attorney¹s office ³has changed the story by adding more language² in order to reinstate the charges. ³The district attorney¹s office has added more claims and added more allegations to keep these charges going, and that¹s just wrong,² Brewington said.
At two previous court hearings, Argueta pleaded not guilty to both charges, and they were dismissed both times by District Court Judge Dana Mitchell Jaffe. But the charges have recently been filed for a third time by District Attorney Kathleen Rice, which has prompted Argueta to add Rice to the list of officials he is suing for ³false arrest, malicious prosecution and racial profiling.² Brewington described Rice¹s latest move as ³vindictive² because of Argueta¹s refusal to accept a plea bargain.
³In this situation, what these officials have attempted to do is take a person who has absolutely no record and put him in the system,² Brewington said. ³Once you¹re in the system, you can¹t get out, and that¹s the game for young African-American and Hispanic men ‹ to get them in the system.²
Rice could not be reached for a comment at press time.
Brewington called Argueta¹s decision to sue the district attorney¹s office and the police ³standing up for what is right.²
³I¹ve been going to court for 17 months now ... and I could easily plead guilty tomorrow and pay a violation fee, but I refuse,² Argueta said. ³I refuse to admit guilt to something that I have not done.²
Ironically, Argueta is the principal of the county¹s Violence Intervention Project ‹ which his arresting officers became aware of during the incident at the Majestic Diner. When they searched him, Argueta said, they found his Nassau County identification, and one officer intimated that they would have treated Argueta differently if they had known about his affiliation with the county.
³They found my I.D. and found out I worked with the police department and the district attorney¹s office, and one officer said to me, ŒWhy didn¹t you tell me?¹² Argueta said. ³It didn¹t matter who I was affiliated with because I should not have been treated that way at all.²
With his lawsuit, Argueta is seeking to have the charges dropped, and to receive a public apology and monetary compensation. Brewington said that the D.A.¹s office has continued to offer Argueta plea bargains, but he will not accept because he is innocent, and believes that pleading guilty would fly in the face of the values he tries to teach young people.
³I¹m not only here representing myself, I¹m representing a community, and the thousands of kids that I talk with on a yearly basis,² Argueta said at the press conference. ³I tell them, don¹t lose faith in the system, and that you have to be a part of the system to change it. This is my system, this is my country and I need to help change things so this doesn¹t happen to anyone else.²
