A former Broward Sheriff's Office deputy arrested three years ago and later fired after witnesses accused him of stomping on a man's face has been reinstated by an arbitrator.
Now the agency could be on the hook for as much as $100,000 of Lazaro Mesa's legal fees, according to his attorney.
Mesa, 24, is to be reinstated with back pay, have his seniority restored and receive any raises he would have been entitled to had he remained with the agency, according to arbitrator William J. McGinnis' Feb. 26 ruling.
McGinnis wrote that the agency did not have just cause to fire Mesa, who according to his ruling acted appropriately when he restrained Anthony Monaco on Oct. 30 at JB's on the Beach in Deerfield Beach.
According to arrest documents, Mesa kneed Monaco in the thigh after Monaco began punching and kicking security guards. Monaco still looked like he was going to fight, so Mesa kneed him in the face. Monaco then fell to the floor, hitting his head.
With Monaco on the ground, Mesa put his foot on Monaco's back and handcuffed him, according to the documents.
But several witnesses said they saw Mesa step down on Monaco's head.
A criminal and an internal affairs investigation were initiated after a witness called BSO and said her daughter saw Mesa stomp on Monaco. A mug shot of Monaco taken after the fight shows what appear to be tread marks on his face.
Mesa, however, was acquitted by a jury last year.
And in his report, McGinnis noted that a number of witness statements were conflicting or flawed and that the tread on Monaco's face did not match the tread on Mesa's shoes.
In the ruling, McGinnis questioned the fairness of the agency's internal investigation. He wrote that Monaco's medical records, the shoe tread pattern, and testimony flaws were never presented to a committee tasked with reviewing internal affairs reports.
''I have serious concerns about the fairness of the investigation [because] key information was either withheld or disregarded,'' he wrote.
Alberto Milian, Mesa's attorney, said his client should never have been investigated.
''This is a great thing for my client, but the bigger story here is that BSO and the State Attorney's Office squandered a lot of tax dollars trying to destroy somebody's life,'' he said.
Milian said a circuit court judge will have to enforce the arbitrator's ruling if Mesa is not reinstated within 90 days of the ruling. A judge is already reviewing a petition for $100,000 in legal fees, he said.
Jim Leljedal, a BSO spokesman, would not directly comment on the ruling.
''We are going to have to study the ruling and then take action,'' he said.
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