Retiree jailed because of random phone number can proceed with malicious prosecution case

(CN) — A 75-year-old, retired Canadian school teacher can proceed with a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the City and County of Monterey, California, after he spent 13 days in jail because a sexual predator had randomly used his wife’s phone number to set up an email account.

U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts on Tuesday denied in part the city and county’s motions to dismiss the claims by Richard and Mildred Zilinskas over his arrest and imprisonment in October 2024 when the couple crossed into the U.S. for a daytrip to Niagara Falls.

According to the couple’s complaint filed last year in San Jose, California, Monterey police were investigating a purportedly 48-year-old man from Ohio, who went by the name of David and who had been communicating with a 13-year-old girl over the meetyou.me internet site. The girl had sent the man nude photos of herself and the two had discussed meeting up at a hotel.

The police investigation led to a mail.com email address “David” had used for his meetyou.me account and to a telephone number he had used when he set up the email address shortly before. That telephone number appeared to be randomly chosen and belonged to Mildred Zilinskas.

Although the Monterey police detective investigating the case received a photo of Richard Zilinskas that showed he was much older than 48, the detective, Michael Garcia, went to a county prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Billie Gibson, to get an arrest warrant for Zilinskas.

A few months after his arrest, all charges against Zilinskas were dropped and a state court issued a factual finding that he was innocent of all charges.

“Plaintiffs allege that Garcia withheld information material to the finding of probable cause in his investigation report, which he provided to Gibson and knew would be presented to the state court,” Pitts said in denying the city’s bid to dismiss the couple’s judicial deception claim.

The detective, according to the couple, did not inform the prosecutor that Richard Zilinskas wasn’t the primary holder of the phone number associated with David’s email address, wasn’t named on David’s email address, didn’t match the description of David’s age and voice, and was not located in Michigan, where David’s IP addresses originated.

The only information Garcia reported that supported a finding of probable cause was that David used Mildred Zilinskas’ phone number when he set up the email account, but the mail.com email platform doesn’t verify users’ phone numbers as long as they contain the correct number of digits.

“Balancing the limited value of this incriminating information and the weight of the potentially exculpatory evidence omitted by Garcia, it is plausible that the state court would not have issued a warrant for Richard if presented with the totality of the evidence,” the judge said. “The allegedly omitted information was thus material to the finding of probable cause.”

Pitts, a Joe Biden appointee, also allowed the couple to proceed with their malicious prosecution claim against the city and the county in so far as it pertains to the police detective and the assistant district attorney.

“Ultimately, because there was nothing more than a phone number that anyone could have purloined, Richard was completely exonerated,” Zilinskas’ attorney Walter Walker said. “But the damage had been done. Not only was he incarcerated, but he lost his job as a schoolteacher, his face and name appeared on social media, and he was both vilified and ostracized in his own town and community.”

“In this day and age when government forces are too often allowed to act with impunity, any time and place when imperious actions under the color of legal authority can be stopped and exposed serves as a benefit to us all,” Walker continued.

However, he dismissed their claims for deliberate fabrication and deliberate suppression of evidence, as well as their claim for reckless criminal investigation. He also dismissed all their claims brought under California state law.

Attorneys for the city and the county didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

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