Virgilio Aguilar Mendez, the Guatemalan migrant who had been wrongfully arrested outside his motel in St. Johns County last May and charged with manslaughter after the sudden death by heart attack of his arresting deputy, is to be released from federal custody on an immigration bond this week. On Tuesday, one of his attorneys filed an amended federal lawsuit accusing St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick of violating Mendez’s civil rights.
The 11-count lawsuit filed in the Middle District of Florida in Orlando by Phillip Arroyo of the Arroyo Law Firm claims several of Mendez’s constitutional rights were violated, including his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, through false arrest and imprisonment, excessive use of force (he was tased six times and held in a chokehold against sheriff’s office policy), the sheriff’s “abuse of process” and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
“Let it be known that Sherriff Hardwick, St. John County and every individual and or entity that was involved in the abuse and injustice Mr. Aguilar Mendez had to endure for the past eight months will be held accountable in a federal court of law for the violation of our client’s civil rights,” Arroyo said in a statement, “which, contrary to the belief of many, protects undocumented immigrants as well.”
Mendez, a Guatemalan Mayan who only speaks Mam, a rare language spoken by half a million people, was 17 when he crossed into the United States from Mexico in December 2021. Customs and Border Patrol designated him an “unaccompanied alien child” and had him placed in a group home-type facility before his release to a family member in Alabama pending the disposition of his immigration case, which may include, but does not necessarily lead to, deportation: Mendez may be eligible for asylum. His immigration case is administrative, not criminal.
He has a government-issued identification document he may use to register for school and apply for work authorization. He must also attend all his court hearings. The case is pending in Atlanta, with a scheduled hearing date of July 8. He has no deportation order against him. He found agricultural work in St. Johns County.
He was speaking to his mother by phone outside the Super 8 motel where he was staying when St. Johns County Sheriff’s Deputy Sheriff’s deputy Michael Kunovich stopped him, tried to interrogate him across the language barrier, failed, frisked him then, with other deputies, tased and forcefully subdued him as an uncomprehending Mendez resisted. After Mendez was arrested for no apparent suspicion other than the color of his skin (his attorney charges he was profiled), the sergeant collapsed and later died at the hospital of what the medical examiner ruled were natural causes and advanced heart disease. Mendez was charged with manslaughter of a law enforcement officer, a felony murder charge with a maximum penalty of life in prison.
His public defender at the time, Rosemary peoples, argued successfully that Mendez was not competent to stand trial. Arroyo was representing him on the civil side, and building up public awareness about the case, which drew outrage from celebrities, a “Release Virgilio Aguilar Mendez” that drew over 600,000 signatures, and other condemnations. (See: “A Poisoned Tree Grows in St. Augustine.”)
Mendez was held at the Volusia Branch jail for 288 days before state charges against him were dropped on March 1, soon after High-Profile Attorney Jose Baez took over the criminal case. Mendez was immediately released from the county jail but was transferred to federal custody pending a determination on a federal hold that had been issued subsequent to the arrest in St. Johns County. Since the St. Johns case became moot, so did the federal hold. Immigration attorney Henry Lim secured Mendez’s release on bond. The state prosecution had argued that even if Mendez were released from the Volusia jail, he would face incarceration on the federal side. That has proved not to be the case.
The Guatemalan-Mayan Center in Lake Worth Beach is coordinating Mendez’s follow-up care. Arroyo, who is pursuing the federal civil case, called Tuesday’s release “another significant victory” in a release issued by his law firm.
The 46-page lawsuit names Hardwick, Kunovich’s estate and two other deputies who were at the scene of the May arrest, Gavin Higgins and George Montgomery. As had Peoples–the public defender–before him, Arroyo’s complaint is sharply critical of Hardwick’s mischaracterization of the events surrounding the arrest, including th sheriff’s claim that Kunovich had acted because Mendez was “trespassing.” In fact, Mendez was on a sidewalk on Super 8 property, next to an abandoned building that belongs to the hotel. The building was locked up, with no sign forbidding anyone from being on the sidewalk. There were no (no trespassing” signs–there couldn’t be: the sidewalk is part of the motel’s access.
“Sheriff Hardwick viewed the bodycam footage before May 24, 2023, which plainly reveals that Sgt. Kunovich knew that he had zero reasonable suspicion
to stop Aguilar Mendez,” the complaint states, “yet on May 25, 2023, Sheriff Hardwick proceeded to blatantly deceive the public in a press conference on the so-called reasonable suspicion with false assertions about ‘trespassing,’ all in an effort to cover up the unconstitutional search and seizure by Sgt. Kunovich.”
Aguilar’s lawsuit notes that the federal action may only be one among others, with a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office in state court, seeking monetary damages, possible.
7
