BK Man Signs For Friend's UPS Package, Gets Jailed For 4 Days: Lawsuit

FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — A Brooklyn man who signed for a friend's UPS package spent four days behind bars because NYPD officers used his signature to falsely link him to a delivery truck robbery, according to a new lawsuit.

Lucien Lacrete filed a false arrest and imprisonment civil complaint Tuesday in Brooklyn court against 13 NYPD officers he claimed violated his civil rights.

The lawsuit details how a favor Lacrete did for a friend — namely, picking up and signing for a UPS package — led to cops arresting him when a delivery driver later told a story about being robbed in December 2020.

"As a direct result of Plaintiff’s false arrest, he was illegally detained for approximately 4 days and attended several court appearances before his case was dismissed," the complaint states.

NYPD officials declined comment on pending litigation.

“We’ll review the case when we are served,” a city Law Department spokesperson said in a statement.

The lawsuit claimed the driver believed he could be in trouble for giving a package to Lacrete — rather than the person addressed on the parcel — and concocted a false story of being robbery by a group of people, including Lacrete. It also floated another explanation: that the driver confused Lacrete with another person.

But, regardless, the complaint states that NYPD officers never conducted "even a cursory examination" of video surveillance footage or the UPS driver's records that showed evidence clearing Lacrete.

Cops also never "questioned the complaining witness why the perpetrator of a crime would provide his identifying information to the alleged victim, a stranger," the lawsuit states.

Officers arrested Lacrete at a Little Haiti home and took him to the 67th Precinct, where he stayed for four days without his medications for diabetes and high blood pressure, the lawsuit states.

The case against Lacrete was eventually dismissed in May 2021, according to the complaint.

Lacrete, in his lawsuit, accuses NYPD officers of falsely telling prosecutors that they had "no evidence whatsoever" he committed a crime.

"Defendant officers failed to inform the District Attorney that the complaining witness’s allegations lacked any veracity and that they lacked any other reliable evidence to establish the Plaintiff had committed the aforementioned offenses, and, in fact, did not have probable cause to arrest him for said offenses," the complaint states.

Lacrete's complaint demands a civil trial and potential judgment against the cops, as well as attorney's fees.