‘They got the wrong guy’: Lawsuit says California deputies nab wrong man in sex case

“They got the wrong guy.”

That sentence is the essence of a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Sunday in Sacramento against Tehama County and sheriff’s deputies by Carlos Omar Sanchez Flores, who was arrested in November and held in jail for six days because he was mistaken for another man with a similar name who was wanted as a child sex offender.

“All I know is my guy was arrested for that and my guy wasn’t that guy,” San Jose attorney Dennis Ingols said by phone Monday. “He told everybody, ‘I’ve never been in that county. I’m the wrong guy.’”

Tehama sheriff’s officials did not immediately respond Monday morning to a phone message and email seeking comment.

But the arrest led to announcements in at least two area newspapers that a suspect had been arrested who was “charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child, forcible rape, lewd and lascivious acts with a child younger than 14 with force, two counts of oral copulation with force and sex with a child younger than 10.”

“To date, Plaintiff’s booking sheet in Tehama County jail, including his photograph appears on publicly-accessible websites for heinous sex crimes against a child under the age of 10,” according to the lawsuit, which seeks damages for unreasonable detention and seizure and due process violations.

Tehama County deputies apparently were looking for a suspect named Carlos Cueto Sanchez, the lawsuit says.

The incident began Nov. 20, 2021, when San Jose police showed up at the plaintiff’s home and arrested him on charges unrelated to the Tehama County case, the lawsuit says.

He was booked into jail, then arraigned three days later and released on his own recognizance, the lawsuit says, adding, “All charges in Santa Clara County relating to the arrest were later dropped.”

“However, before he was able to leave the courtroom, he was informed that he was being held on a warrant from another jurisdiction,” the lawsuit says, and he was taken by Santa Clara County deputies back to jail.

“Plaintiff did not know which other jurisdiction, nor was he told,” the suit says. “He was asked if he was wanted in any other county, and he said no, he was not the man they were looking for.”

This did not resolve the matter.

Instead, on Nov. 28, Tehama County sheriff’s deputies Stephen Hoag and Scott Kelley arrived at the jail in San Jose with a warrant, the lawsuit says.

“On or about Sunday, November 28, 2021, Defendants Hoag and Kelley traveled from Tehama to Santa Clara County Jail to pick up the wrong man,” the lawsuit says. “The trip is over 210 miles long, each way.

“Hoag and Kelley took custody of Plaintiff and transported him by automobile to Tehama County Jail, in Red Bluff, California. At no point did they compare the Plaintiff with the information available to them, which included fingerprints, photographs, and (California driver’s license) to confirm that he was the proper suspect. He wasn’t.”

Carlos Omar Sanchez Flores was then booked into the jail in Red Bluff, the suit says, and booking logs reported by the Appeal-Democrat and the Red Bluff Daily News carried the news that Carlos Cueto Sanchez Flores had been arrested on the sex crime charges and was being held on $4.5 million bail.

Carlos Omar Sanchez Flores then spent two days in jail without being interviewed by deputies until his arraignment on Nov. 30.

“On Tuesday, November 30, 2021, defendants Hoag and Kelley interviewed plaintiff for the first time,” the suit says. “This, despite the fact that they had all been in the same vehicle for a number of hours on November 28, 2021.

“This, despite the fact that plaintiff had been held in Santa Clara County Jail for at least four days per Tehama’s request, and Tehama County Jail for approximately two days, at this point based on the warrant for another man.”

The deputies then took a swab from the man’s cheek for DNA analysis, which “confirmed that plaintiff was not the subject of the warrant,” the suit says.

“Defendants Hoag and Kelley, for reasons unknown, asked plaintiff to have his wife provide them with a photograph of plaintiff, although he was standing there right in front of them,” the lawsuit says. “She did. It looked like plaintiff. It didn’t look like the suspect.

“Upon receipt of the photo from plaintiff’s wife, defendants compared the photo with the man before them, plaintiff Carlos Omar Sanchez Flores, and with the photographs of Carlos Cueto Sanchez that they had possessed all along. Hoag and Kelley immediately realized that they had the wrong man. Finally.”

Carlos Omar Sanchez Flores was then taken to Tehama County Superior court, where someone from the District Attorney’s office “informed the judge that Tehama had been holding the wrong man, and that he must be released,” the suit says.

“Plaintiff was released, after approximately 4 days of unconstitutional detention in Santa Clara County, and approximately 2 more in Tehama County,” the suit says.

The lawsuit names the two deputies, Tehama and Santa Clara counties and unnamed defendants and says officials should have know they had the wrong suspect, that the February 2021 warrant for Carlos Cueto Sanchez included the correct California driver’s license number for the actual suspect.

“It did not match plaintiff’s CDL number,” the suit says. “Obviously.”

“The failure of ALL defendants to promptly confirm that plaintiff was not the subject of the warrant, while they continued to seize and detain him, is the result of improper policies, practices, procedures, customs and/or training by Santa Clara and/or Tehama, and was a driving force in plaintiff’s wrongful seizure and imprisonment,” the suit says, adding that authorities had photos of the actual suspect and could “have cleared up the issue in a matter of minutes.”

The whereabouts of the suspect actually being sought in the case remain unclear. He was not listed Monday among inmates being held at the jail in Red Bluff.

This story was originally published October 10, 2022 at 11:55 AM.