Manhattan Beach spends $175,000 to settle sex sting lawsuit
Charles S. Couch, who filed a lawsuit against the city of Manhattan Beach after being caught in a sex sting while helping a disabled child in a public bathroom.
The city of Manhattan Beach paid $175,000 to settle the lawsuit brought by the man caught in a Manhattan Beach Police sex sting while helping a disabled child in 2012, according to a copy of the settlement released in response to a public records request. It also agreed to remove the arrest from his record.
Speaking by phone from Philadelphia, where he moved after the incident, Charles S. Couch, 23, said that this was “the number one thing” he wanted to achieve with the lawsuit.
“For me, I’m happy it’s resolved,” said Couch. “I’m glad they were willing to do the thing that I asked for originally, which was to remove the arrest from my record.”
Couch, who was taking care of a mentally and physically handicapped child, was waiting for the child to use the public bathroom at the Strand and Marine Avenue when plain clothes policemen arrested him as part of a sex sting. Police had received reports that men were using the bathroom to engage in public sex. Couch was brought to the police station but released after several hours of questioning and after the child’s parents verified that he was a caretaker for their son. He was given a certificate of detention that said that there was insufficient evidence to arrest him.
Despite this, a month later, his name and photo were released by the Manhattan Beach Police Department, along with 17 others arrested during the sting operation. It appeared on the front page of The Daily Breeze.
Couch’s lawyer, Albro Lundry, said that he sent letters to Police Chief Eve Irvine and the city council on Sep. 12, 2013 on behalf of his client asking them to destroy his arrest record, but he never heard back. So a month later, Couch decided to move forward and file the lawsuit.
“My options were to live with it or do something,” said Couch. “That was what I chose to do.”
Although the suit, which accused the police of violating Couch’s civil rights, demanded $5 million, Couch said that he was satisfied with the settlement.
“The number one thing was clearing my name completely. I don’t know how you can put a number to that, but I felt it was fair overall.”
According to Lundy, Couch would not have been able to get his arrest record removed if they had taken the case to trial.
“That’s a lifetime of potential job opportunities removed because of an arrest record,” he said.
Lundy also said that the amount asked for “wasn’t a realistic figure.” He said that if the case went to trial and they won, the city would only be liable to pay up to the amount requested, regardless of what a jury awarded them, so they asked for a large amount.
Both sides had conducted depositions and discovery when they agreed to settle.
The city attorney’s office and the police department did not return calls seeking comment for this article. However, they released a statement noting that a settlement was not an admission of guilt.
“Without an admission of liability or fault by either side, the parties believed a settlement was in everyone’s best interest,” the statement said.
Couch’s arrest was not for lewd conduct or child endangerment — for which Couch was cleared immediately when he was released following the sting with a certificate of detention saying that there was insufficient evidence to arrest him on either charge — but for two charges of resisting, obstructing or delaying a peace officer. According to Couch, he first became aware of these charges when he received a notice in the mail about 11 months after the original incident.
“I had just started getting back going with life,” said Couch. “Out of the blue, I got a letter saying there was a warrant out for my arrest.”
The city offered Couch a couple of deals, according to Lundy, but they would have required Couch to plead guilty, which he refused to do, even though he knew it meant more time and money.
“For me, it was a matter of knowing I did nothing wrong,” said Couch. “I was not willing to say I did something when I knew full well that I didn’t.”
At one hearing, one of Couch’s arresting officers was summoned but didn’t show up, according to Lundy. The judge dismissed the case, and the police didn’t refile. However, the arrest was still on Couch’s record. That was when Lundy sent the letters to the police chief and city council asking for it to be removed.
Couch never imagined he would go through such an ordeal.
“It’s a scary thing,” he said. “Sometimes in movies you’ll see a similar thing. Until it happens to you, you would never imagine it happens in real life.”
After the sting, Couch, who began working with individuals with special needs as a volunteer when he was 15, stopped working with the child, even though the child’s parents were willing to have him keep working for them, he said. He hasn’t done any more such work since.
“I’m not comfortable doing it anymore,” he said. “Hopefully sometime in the future, I will be.”
Another disruption to his life was having to drop out of his classes at El Camino Junior College. Police confiscated and held onto his laptop—illegally, it was alleged in the lawsuit—which had all his school work.
Couch decided to move away from the South Bay and pursue his education. It’s impossible to know what effect the arrest had on his college applications, but some colleges asked if the applicant was the subject of any ongoing investigations, to which he had to answer, “Yes.”
“I can only imagine it is a big factor,” he said.
These days, he’s earning a degree in computer science at Temple University in Philadelphia. Although he’s come back to visit his family and friends and for business related to the lawsuit, he said he doesn’t feel safe in the South Bay and avoids Manhattan Beach.
Even on the other side of the country, the ordeal continues to have an impact on him.
“My outlook in life is totally different because of it,” he said. “In some ways, for the better. I lived in a naïve state of mind thinking something like this could never happen.”
When asked if it made him more cynical, he said yes.
“I have to fight the cynicism in my head of not trusting people,” he said.
One of Couch’s requests in his lawsuit was that all traces of his name and the incident be removed from the Internet.
“In a perfect world, it would be removed from everywhere,” he said.
But he realizes that with the Internet, this isn’t possible, so he tries “to make the best of it” by, for example, speaking for this article. And he hopes that one day, his achievements will eclipse it.
“Other accomplishments will hopefully rise to the top of the search bar, instead of this other stuff,” he said.
When told of the interest that his case has stirred, Couch’s voice becomes alive.
“I think it’s really great that citizens in our community are standing up,” he said. “They should be aware of what’s going on with the police.”
“I’m really glad, if nothing else came out of this, that people are saying, ‘Enough is enough.’”