AUGUST 29, 1997 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 9
Cleveland Metroparks rangers accused of entrapment
Continued from page 1
to avoid the restrooms altogether in the "Emerald Necklace" of parks that surround Cleveland.
Most of the men who are arrested pleaded guilty, pay their fines, serve their jail time, and quietly go about trying to forget about it. Most do not try to fight the charges for fear of exposing themselves to publicity, further embarrassment and loss of jobs or families. Gradually, however, dozens of men have told their stories. Six called the Chronicle, and hesitantly told their stories over the phone, never identifying themselves. Eleven talked to lawyers in the gay community. Others told their friends about their experiences, who passed that information on.
Lewd gestures
The stories from men who have been arrested have a lot in common. They all involve being aggressively approached by a man who initiates contact, follows them and tries to engage them in sexual behavior. Some
up in a brown van. The man maneuvered his van closer and closer until "I could shake hands with him," Smith said.
The man began to peer into Smith's car. "Then he got to be pretty obnoxious about the whole thing. I assumed he was cruising," said Smith. "I wasn't interested. I wasn't giving him any indication that I was interested."
Smith said he tried to ignore the man, but "he wouldn't leave me alone.".
"He got to a point for a couple minutes it looked like he was masturbating in his van."
Smith said he was about to leave to report that he was being harassed, but changed his mind when he saw that the man was displaying a rainbow flag sticker.
"I saw the gay pride sticker on the back of his van, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt of being an obnoxious person," Smith said.
Instead, Smith drove to another lot nearby to finish his lunch in peace.
Afterwards, he went into the restroom, where he found the same man, pacing the floor of the restroom.
DAWN LEACH
I
Attorney Edele Passalacqua has six clients who say a park ranger in a van made sexual gestures at them.
men report being alone in their cars when someone approaches in a van, making lewd gestures that include feigning masturbation, eating a banana in a sexually suggestive way, or motioning for him to show his penis.
One man reported that a man approached him in the restroom, engaged him in conversation, made sexual offers and arrested him when he agreed to go to an apartment with him.
"The story is always the same, across the board," said Edele Passalacqua, a Cleveland attorney who has represented six men arrested in the parks. "People have come forward and talked to me, and said that they talked to other defendants as well."
"They are sitting in a parked car in the park, a van pulls up a space away, pulls next to them, backs out, pulls closer, backs out again, pulls closer, backs out again, pulls
"Right away, I was really skeptical. I kind of thought something was going on." While Smith used the urinal, he could hear the man moving around.
Thought the man was a mugger
"I was just wondering what he was up to, whether he was going to pull a knife or whatever. I turned my head, and he was peeking around the partition, grabbing his crotch," said Smith. "I thought to myself, get out of here."
"It was probably the
most humiliating thing
even closer until they're mirror to mirror, I've ever been through.
with someone peering out at them from the van and making sexual gestures."
That's exactly what "Joe Smith" (not his real name), one of Passalacqua's clients, describes.
"In my line of work, I listen to a lot of people's problems," Smith said, but now he has plenty of his own to worry about.
Smith has trouble sleeping and can't concentrate at work.
"I'm living on the edge right now," Smith said.
A sunny lunch in the park
Smith's problems began on a pleasant, sunny day in May when he took his fast-food lunch to the Metropark picnic area at Memphis Ave. and Tiedemann Rd. Within minutes, he found himself bloodied and handcuffed, being taken to spend the night in jail, accused of sexual imposition, felonious assault, and resisting arrest.
Smith said he had been sitting in his car cating when a man wearing sunglasses pulled
I couldn't eat. It was disgusting."
Smith said that after he used the urinal, the man approached him and spoke to him.
"He asked me if there was any action going on this afternoon," said Smith. "I said I had no idea and I asked him 'Why, are you a police officer?'
""
The man said no, and asked Smith if he was a police officer. Smith said no.
"So I turned around to walk out, and that's when he said 'Sorry, I lied. You're under arrest for sexual imposition. ' I was outraged,” said Smith..
The officer showed a badge, but Smith thought at first it was a fake.
"I grabbed the badge out of his hand, which probably was not a good idea, but I didn't believe . . . I had asked him if he was
a police officer and I was suspicious about
the whole thing. And I grabbed the badge out of his hand, he grabbed the badge back."
Smith said he then backed out of the restroom. He said he saw another undercover ranger get out of the van and run toward him with a gun, telling him to get on the ground. "Then I was roughed up a little bit, my face was pushed into the ground," said Smith. "At that time they called for backup. It seemed like the whole city was there then."
"One called me a-excuse the Frenchmotherfucker. Pushed me."
Smith said that handcuffs were put on him so tightly that he lost feeling in his thumb for almost three months.
Spent the night in jail
When Smith arrived at the police station, he was bleeding around his eye, and police offered to take him to the hospital. Smith declined. He spent the night in jail, and then called his partner and called his work to say that he wouldn't be at work that day.
"I've never been arrested," said Smith. "Never been in a court room, never been in jail. It was probably the most humiliating thing I've ever been through. I couldn't eat. It was disgusting."
Smith was charged with two counts of felonious assault, two counts of resisting arrest, and one count of sexual imposition.
Sexual imposition is defined as making sexual contact knowing that the contact is offensive to the other person. It is a third degree misdemeanor.
The police report says that Smith was masturbating in his car, that he fondled himself in his car and in the restroom, and that he attacked the undercover rangers who arrested him, Sgt. Manzatt, and Sgt. Bernath, the second ranger in the van. (Their first names were unavailable.) Smith denied those allegations. "I did not kick him, punch him, throw him against the wall like he's claiming," he said.
As to the report that he had been masturbating, Smith said "They could have arrested me right then if I was doing such a thing, but it didn't happen. They didn't even pursue me in the park when I left that parking spot and went back to the other lot to finish lunch."
Smith said that at a pretrial hearing a week later, one ranger who claimed he had been injured had not yet sought medical treat-
ment.
"One ranger claims that I kicked him in the knee, and I supposedly chipped his tooth, and this was a week later, and he had not even been to a doctor or dentist yet," said Smith.
Only gays are targeted
Smith said he understands the need to stop public sex in the parks, but that gays should not be specially targeted for enforcement. Just before Manzatt pulled into the lot, Smith said he saw a man in a pickup truck park nearby, get into a car with a woman and have sex with her.
"I could see through the truck windows that there was oral sex going on. It didn't seem like the rangers were interested in that." Deputy Chief James Frabotta, who oversees the operation to prevent sexual activity in the Metroparks, said in April that indecency laws apply equally to heterosexuals and homosexuals, and that rangers would enforce them evenly. However, Manzatt testified twice in Parma Municipal Court that his job was to "eliminate homosexual behavior from the parks."
"That gay pride sticker [on the undercover van] really angered me," said Passalacqua. "But it also drives home the point that they're specifically looking for homosexuals carrying out sexual activity in the park, not just anybody carrying out sexual activity in the park. Which I think we'd all agree, it's an inappropriate place for it. That goes along with the adulterers, guys getting blow jobs [from women]. I see it all the time, steamed up windows in the park."
"The problem I have is that the undercover cops are doing exactly what they're supposed to be trying to prevent," said Passalacqua. "Apparently there's a number of complaints, act on the complaints. Look
and if it's happening, then bust them. Why elicit it? Don't entice and encourage, or to use the legal term, entrap." 'Sexual predator'
Passalacqua said that she'd like to run a photograph of Manzatt in the Chronicle to warn the gay community of a "sexual predator."
"Because he's exactly that, I think," Passalacqua said. “It's my opinion that he walks a fine line between what's constitutional and what's not, and in my opinion that makes him very dangerous."
Passalacqua said she believes that what is happening is entrapment, but is not optimistic about proving it in court.
"In a jury's eye, a police officer has a lot of credibility."
Legally, entrapment is when an officer encourages someone to commit a crime they would not otherwise commit, in order to make an arrest.
Smith faces the possibility of a fine and up to 18 months in jail. He has spent approximately $1,600 on the case so far.
"IfI would have to spend any jail time, my whole life would be ruined. That's why I'm living on the edge right now, not knowing what's going to happen."
The incident affected his relationship with his lover of two years.
"It was very difficult at the beginning, but ..after talking to various people, he totally believes it was a set-up," said Smith.
Smith said the his summer has been ruined, his work is suffering because he can't concentrate, and he has flashbacks of his arrest.
"If this thing isn't solved by the final pretrial, it's going to cost me another $3,000 which I don't have," said Smith. "I can't afford it, but I'll have to afford it. I don't have a choice."
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