Opinion ID: 2817217
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Criminal Impersonation

Text: The district court’s order granting summary judgment did not resolve the issue of whether Officer Nelson also had probable cause to arrest Ms. Simpson for criminal impersonation,8 and Officer Nelson does not argue on appeal this alternative basis justifying Ms. Simpson’s arrest. The issue has been raised by Ms. Simpson on appeal, however, and it assumes new significance given our conclusion that there are material facts in dispute as to whether there was probable cause to arrest Ms. Simpson for theft of services. 7 Defendants argue that once Officer Nelson saw Ms. Simpson enter the bus, he was not obligated to permit her to attempt to evade the charge of theft of services by swiping her MetroCard at that point, relying on Mazurkiewicz v. NYC Transit Authority, 810 F. Supp. 563 (S.D.N.Y. 1993). That case, however, is inapposite. The plaintiff in Mazurkiewicz offered to pay a subway fare only after he was accosted by police officers who observed him jump the turnstile. Id. at 565. It was reasonable for those officers to believe that plaintiff would not have paid had he escaped unnoticed. Here, by contrast, Ms. Simpson testified that she was already waiting in line to pay her fare when she was accosted by Officer Nelson. The facts supporting an inference of intent to steal transit services are therefore very different from those in Mazurkiewicz. 8 The district court included the following footnote: Plaintiff focuses her argument regarding probable cause entirely on the charge of criminal impersonation. (See Pl.’s Opp. 4-8 (“Defendant is wrong, however, that Plaintiff committed the crime of criminal Impersonation [sic].”).) However, the parties agree that defendant Nelson in fact arrested plaintiff for theft of services, not criminal impersonation. (Defs.’ 56.1 ¶ 5; Pl.’s 56.1 ¶ 5.) Simpson, 2013 WL 6503521, at  n.3. It is not as clear to us the role or weight assigned to this proposition by the district court. 13 14-680-cv Reisha Simpson v. City of New York This Court has long held that an arresting officer need not have probable cause “with respect to each individual charge, or, indeed, any charge actually invoked by the arresting officer at the time of the arrest,” so long as the officer had probable cause to make an arrest for any crime, not necessarily the crime charged, at the time of the arrest. Jaegly v. Couch, 439 F.3d 149, 154 (2d Cir. 2006). Despite the fact that Ms. Simpson was not charged with criminal impersonation, and although the district court did not determine whether Officer Nelson had probable cause to arrest her on that basis, we now reach that issue in light of our determination that probable cause cannot be found as a matter of law to support her arrest for theft of services and because this case is remanded for further proceedings. Under New York law, a person is guilty of criminal impersonation in the second degree when she: (a) Pretends to be a public servant, or wears or displays without authority any uniform, badge, insignia or facsimile thereof by which such public servant is lawfully distinguished, or falsely expresses by h[er] words or actions that [s]he is a public servant or is acting with approval or authority of a public agency or department; and (b) so acts with intent to induce another to submit to such pretended official authority, to solicit funds or to otherwise cause another to act in reliance upon that pretense. N.Y. Penal Law § 190.25(3). Officer Nelson argued on summary judgment that he had reason to believe that Ms. Simpson was “pretending to be an officer with the hope that if Officer Nelson thought she was an officer she would not be [ ] arrested.” Defs.’ Mem. of Law in Supp. of Their Mot. for Summ. J., No. 12-cv-6577, Doc. 19 at 4. He asserted that Ms. Simpson “h[eld] her wallet open on the street such that her union membership card . . . was exposed” and that she was “attempting to deliberately display her membership card to him.” Id. 14 14-680-cv Reisha Simpson v. City of New York The facts viewed in the light most favorable to Ms. Simpson paint a completely different picture. Officer Nelson asked whether she was an officer only after he had reached into her wallet without her permission and removed her PBA card. Officer Nelson admits that he retrieved Ms. Simpson’s PBA card from her wallet. On these facts there is no basis to conclude that she held herself out as a public servant. It would be error, therefore, to determine on summary judgment that there was probable cause to arrest Ms. Simpson for criminal impersonation.