By Robert Patrick
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
EAST ST. LOUIS — A onetime inmate at the St. Clair County Jail claims in a federal lawsuit that he was falsely imprisoned for 53 days in retribution for refusing to shake hands with his former jailer at a church event.
The suit, filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis, says that Christopher Malloyd, 25, of Fairview Heights, was sent back to prison after former sheriff’s Capt. Thomas Trice “maliciously” and falsely reported him to police and state officials as a parole violator.
The suit seeks unspecified damages for false arrest, conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress from St. Clair County, the sheriff’s office, Trice and unnamed other county employees.
According to official documents, Trice claimed that Malloyd threatened him at a church awards ceremony in Collinsville. The documents also show that Malloyd was released after an inquiry found insufficient evidence against him.
Malloyd said in an interview that he was “very upset” after his arrest. He said he lost his two part-time jobs and had to drop out of school, and that his ex-girlfriend filed for sole custody of their daughter. Moreover, his family had to pay a lawyer to get him out.
“It was all taken away in the blink of eye for no good reason,” he said.
He also missed his daughter’s sixth birthday, which was the day after his arrest. “What kind of impact did that have on her?” he asked.
But Trice insisted to a reporter, “I’m not responsible for anyone getting a parole violation. I have no control over that.” He said, “I have a stellar record. I don’t have any blemishes or complaints on my record at all.”
Malloyd’s claim “makes no sense,” Trice said. “I’m at an event where I’m being honored. I don’t even know he’s there.” He said he encountered Malloyd as he was leaving and didn’t immediately know who he was.
Trice referred a reporter to his report for the details of what happened.
Malloyd had been in the jail, charged with the armed robbery of a White Castle restaurant in 2009, when Trice was its assistant superintendent, the suit says. Malloyd later was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and paroled in 2014.
The encounter was on Sept. 13, 2014, after a church awards ceremony at the Gateway Center in Collinsville. Malloyd’s grandmother was recognized as a founding member of her church.
Malloyd said that Trice appeared to recognize him after the ceremony. Trice approached, asked Malloyd’s name and stuck out his hand for a shake.
Malloyd said he refused, sparking a “very loud, belligerent” argument.
Trice, in a criminal complaint he later filed, said Malloyd approached him and started a conversation, asking if Trice recognized him. He said Malloyd had a “clinched fist” and later appeared to be about to attack him.
Afterward, Trice called an off-duty colleague to contact Collinsville police anonymously, the suit says. Trice did not call 911 or police directly.
The Collinsville police report, reviewed by the Post-Dispatch at Malloyd’s lawyer’s office, says the department was contacted by a St. Clair County dispatcher. Officers interviewed witnesses, including Trice, Malloyd and his girlfriend, and concluded it was only a “verbal dispute.” No one was arrested.
After Trice wrote out a criminal complaint, he contacted a supervisor in the probation office. The probation violation report contains a near-verbatim copy of Trice’s original complaint. It says that Trice “feared for my life” as well as for the people he was with. It also says that Malloyd violated his parole by being unemployed, failing a drug test, failing to take anger management classes and violating the terms of his electronic monitoring.
Malloyd said none of that was true. And he and his lawyer said that the parole officer, Thomas Gordon, did no investigation before seeking Malloyd’s arrest on a parole violation.
Malloyd said he was actually doing so well on parole that officials had let him take off his ankle monitor 30 days early.
Tony Dacey, Malloyd’s lawyer, said he thinks Trice felt “offended and embarrassed” by being rebuffed, and filled out his complaint with the intent that Malloyd would be arrested.
Malloyd was — when he showed up for a regular appointment with Gordon.
Malloyd said he asked Gordon why he was being arrested. “He told me he didn’t know,” Malloyd said.
Gordon’s supervisor ordered Malloyd taken to the county jail. Malloyd didn’t find out why until after he was transferred to a state prison.
Accused parole violators are supposed to be given a preliminary hearing within 10 days of arrival at an Illinois state facility. It wasn’t clear whether Malloyd received one, or if his former lawyer asked for a delay.
Fifty-two days after Malloyd’s arrest, the Prisoner Review Board cleared him. It determined, “Credible testimony conflicts with (the) initial complaint, including the fact that the inmate was employed. No charges from local police,” according to a copy of the order reviewed in Dacey’s office.
Malloyd was released the next day. He has since returned to school.
The Illinois Department of Corrections declined to respond to questions about Malloyd, saying details are confidential. But spokeswoman Nicole Wilson did say that inmates can be returned to prison “for a number of reasons, including new arrests.”
A reporter’s calls to Gordon and his supervisor were referred back to Wilson.
Ken Tupy, chief legal counsel for the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, said that the preliminary hearing uses a probable-cause standard to determine if a parole violation is likely, which he characterized as a “very low standard” of evidence. “If it’s he-said, she-said, that’s probably enough for probable cause,” he explained.
In front of the board, the standard is a preponderance of the evidence: whether it’s more likely than not that someone committed a violation.
Trice is now president of Triken Consulting Inc., a consulting and private investigation firm in Belleville, and teaches at three area universities, according to his Triken biography. He has also been lauded for his work with the sheriff’s office over the years, the company said.