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17-959-cv 

Maria Moulthrop v. Slavin et al 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER 

FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF 

APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY 

ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX 

OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY 

ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. 

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for 

the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United 

States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New 

York, on the 7th day of November, two thousand seventeen. 

PRESENT: DENNIS JACOBS, 

 ROBERT D. SACK, 

 BARRINGTON D. PARKER, 

 Circuit Judges.

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Maria Moulthrop, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 -v.- 17-959-cv 

 

Michael Slavin, Lieutenant, Waterbury 

Police Department, City of Waterbury, 

in his individual and Official Capacities, 

David McKnight, Detective, Waterbury Police 

Department, City of Waterbury, in his 

Individual and Official Capacities, Orlando 

Rivera, Detective, Waterbury Police Department, 

City of Waterbury, in his Individual and 

Official Capacities, Vernon Riddick, Chief, 

Waterbury Police Department, City of Waterbury, 

in his Individual and Official Capacities, 

Neil O'Leary, Mayor, City of Waterbury, 

in his Official Capacity, Paul Guidone, 

Mary Ann Marold, Education Liaison, Waterbury 

Public Schools, City of Waterbury, in her 
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Individual Capacity, Doreen Biolo, 

Business Office Manager, Waterbury 

Public Schools, in her Individual Capacity, 

Thomas Pannone, Frederick L. Dorsey, 

 Defendant - Appellees, 

TD Bank, N.A., 

 Defendant. 

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FOR APPELLANT: Norman Pattis, Pattis & Smith 

Law Firm, New Haven, CT. 

 

FOR APPELLEES: Joseph A. Mengacci, Esq., Office 

of the Corporation Counsel, 

Waterbury, CT. 

Appeal from a judgment of the District Court for the 

District of Connecticut (Bolden, J.). 

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED 

AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court be 

AFFIRMED. 

Maria Moulthrop appeals from the judgment of the United 

States District Court for the District of Connecticut 

dismissing her false arrest and malicious prosecution 

claims against certain municipal employees of Waterbury, 

Connecticut. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the 

underlying facts, the procedural history, and the issues 

presented for review. 

 Moulthrop was placed on leave from her position as 

principal at Hopeville Elementary School in fall 2011 after 

the school district uncovered irregularities in student 

standardized testing. An internal investigation expanded 

into allegations of other improprieties, including 

mismanagement of funds allotted to Hopeville’s Parent 

Teacher Organization (PTO). A warrant for Moulthrop’s 

arrest was issued on the strength of an affidavit based on 

investigations by the Waterbury Police Department (the 
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“Police defendants”). Statements of school employees (the 

“District defendants”) included allegations that the 

Hopeville PTO was long defunct, had no directives, and was 

operated solely by Moulthrop for her personal projects. 

The District defendants alleged unsanctioned fundraising 

and personal expenditures with school funds were siphoned 

into the PTO’s account. The affidavit also reflected a 

forensic accounting of the PTO’s account with TD Bank, 

which uncovered, among other suspicious charges, a payment 

to repair Moulthrop’s personal car and purchases of a flatscreen television and a leafblower. See J. App’x at 115-

17. 

A magistrate judge signed the warrant and Moulthrop was 

arrested and charged with larceny. Moulthrop alleged a 

conspiracy by the teachers and police officers to remove 

her from her position by spinning stories about the 

mismanaged PTO. Without denying the TD Bank charges, she 

purportedly defended herself by explaining that most of the 

purchases were ultimately intended for the school and that 

the use of the PTO account for the car repairs had been an 

accident that she had attempted to correct with the 

merchant. The jury acquitted her of all charges. 

 Moulthrop’s suit against the city, the Police 

defendants, and the District defendants alleged, inter 

alia, false arrest under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and malicious 

prosecution. Count Two of the Amended Complaint alleges 

that Lieutenant Michael Slavin and Detective David McKnight 

knowingly or recklessly misrepresented the facts of her 

tenure as principal when they applied for the arrest 

warrant in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Count Three 

alleges that the District defendants “initiated” a 

malicious prosecution through their participation in the 

internal investigation that eventually led to the criminal 

prosecution. The district court granted the defendants’ 

motion to dismiss the complaint in its entirety. Moulthrop 

appeals the dismissal of Counts Two and Three. “We review 

de novo the grant of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for 

failure to state a claim, accepting all factual allegations 

as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of 

the plaintiff.” Trs. of the Upstate N.Y. Eng’rs Pension 

Fund v. Ivy Asset Mgmt., 843 F.3d 561, 566 (2d Cir. 2016). 
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A plaintiff claiming false arrest under Section 1983 

must show that the defendants intentionally confined her 

without consent and without justification. Weyant v. Okst, 

101 F.3d 845, 852 (2d Cir. 1996). “The existence of 

probable cause to arrest constitutes justification and is a 

complete defense to an action for false arrest.” Id. 

(citing Bernard v. United States, 25 F.3d 98, 102 (2d Cir. 

1994)); Fulton v. Robinson, 289 F.3d 188, 195 (2d Cir. 

2002). “Probable cause to arrest a person exists if the 

law enforcement official, on the basis of the totality of 

the circumstances, has sufficient knowledge or reasonably 

trustworthy information to justify a person of reasonable 

caution in believing that an offense has been or is being 

committed by the person to be arrested.” United States v. 

Valentine, 539 F.3d 88, 93 (2d Cir. 2008)(internal 

citations and quotations marks omitted). We consider the 

elements of the offense for which Moulthrop was arrested to 

assess the objective reasonableness of the officers’ 

belief. Lennon v. Miller, 66 F.3d 416, 424 (2d Cir. 1995).1 

Moulthrop argues that the affidavit submitted by the 

police officers in support of the arrest warrant contained 

material omissions and falsehoods from the teacher 

interviews that, if corrected, vitiate the probable cause 

determination. Where, as here, a plaintiff alleges an 

affiant knowingly or recklessly misrepresented information, 

she must show that “misstatements and omissions were 

necessary to the finding of probable cause.” Escalera v. 

Lunn, 361 F.3d 747, 743 (2d Cir. 2004) (citing Golino v. 

City of New Haven, 950 F.2d 864, 870 (2d Cir. 1991)). “We 

assess the materiality of alleged misstatements in a 

warrant application by putting aside allegedly false 

material, supplying any omitted information, and then 

determining whether the contents of the ‘corrected 

affidavit’ would have supported a finding of probable 

cause” for the stated crime. Loria v. Gorman, 306 F.3d 

 

1 Under Connecticut law, a conviction for larceny requires 

“(1) the wrongful taking or carrying away of the personal 

property of another; (2) the existence of a felonious 

intent in the taker to deprive the owner of [the property] 

permanently; and (3) the lack of consent of the owner.” 

State v. Chemlen, 140 A.3d 347, 369 (Conn. App. 2016) 

(alterations in the original). 
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1271, 1289 (2d Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted). 

As the district court concluded, probable cause would 

have existed solely on the basis of information in the 

affidavit that Moulthrop does not challenge, including that 

Moulthrop operated the PTO by herself, and bank records 

showing that the PTO paid Crestwood Ford more than $1,000 

for repairs to Moulthrop’s car and bought a leaf blower not 

used at the school and a television and camera that were 

kept for a time at Moulthrop’s home. See State v. 

Papandrea, 991 A.2d 617, 624 (Conn. App. 2010), aff'd 26 

A.3d 75 (2011) (finding defendant guilty of larceny for 

issuing checks from a business account for personal use). 

 

The “omissions” alleged by Moulthrop relate to the 

failures of the police defendants to conduct additional 

interviews as a part of their investigation (e.g., Am. 

Compl. ¶ 102) and line-item details for particular 

transactions (e.g., Am. Compl. ¶ 89). These items, if 

added to the affidavit would still not undermine probable 

cause to arrest Moulthrop for larceny. At best, her 

complaint can be read to offer partial ex post 

justification for what “a person of reasonable caution” may 

consider criminal activity-which does not negate probable 

cause. See Curley v. Village of Suffern, 268 F.3d 65, 70 

(2d Cir. 2001) (probable cause may still exist “where a 

police officer was presented with different stories from an 

alleged victim and the arrestee”). 

A corrected affidavit would have supported a finding of 

probable cause. Accordingly, we affirm the dismissal of 

Moulthrop’s false arrest claim. And since a finding of 

“probable cause is a complete defense to a constitutional 

claim of malicious prosecution,” Betts v. Shearman, 751 

F.3d 78, 82 (2d Cir. 2014), Moulthrop’s remaining claims 

fail with it. 

Finally, Moulthrop contends the district court abused 

its discretion in denying her leave to amend. See Cruz v. 

FxDirectDealer, LLC, 720 F.3d 115, 125 (2d Cir. 2013). As 

Moulthrop’s brief concedes, a “large universe of evidence 

[was] available to her from the [underlying] criminal 

proceedings” at the time she drafted her original and 
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Amended Complaint. Appellant’s Br. 20. Moreover, probable 

cause existed purely on the basis of Moulthrop’s own 

concessions and undisputed facts, rendering futile any 

further amendments to the pleadings. The district court 

did not abuse its discretion in denying leave to amend the 

complaint. See Van Buskirk v. The New York Times Co., 325 

F.3d 87, 92 (2d Cir. 2003). 

For the foregoing reasons, and finding no merit in 

Moulthrop’s other arguments, we hereby AFFIRM the judgment 

of the district court. 

 FOR THE COURT: 

 CATHERINE O’HAGAN WOLFE, CLERK