Why was lawyer arrested after tossing old license plate in trash?

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Criminal Justice Why was lawyer arrested after tossing old license plate in trash?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

July 19, 2023, 2:02 pm CDT

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“I was lucky enough, fortunate enough to be in a position to hire an attorney, challenge the charge,” Colorado lawyer Manuel Diego Soza told the Denver Post. Image from Shutterstock.

A Colorado lawyer who tossed his expired Texas license plate in the trash said he was wrongly arrested after the plate was used on a vehicle owned by a Walmart thief.

The Denver Post had the story on the ordeal suffered by lawyer Manuel Diego Soza, who was wrongly accused of stealing a $199 speaker by Westminster, Colorado, police.

Soza said he is a Hispanic man, as was the Walmart thief. But his license plate was used on a Subaru that was a different model and color than his car. The thief had a neck tattoo, while Soza doesn’t have one. And the suspect looks younger and shorter than Soza.

A detective had concluded that Soza was the thief after looking at a surveillance photo of the culprit and a picture of Soza.

“The suspect who stole the merchandise is clearly Manuel Diego Soza,” the detective concluded in a report.

Soza told the Denver Post that the thief didn’t resemble him at all.

The thief “was just another Hispanic male,” Soza said. “I assume [the detective] saw my name and was like, ‘Hispanic male, this matches somehow.’”

Soza was arrested at his apartment complex and taken to jail, where he spent about six hours before he was released on bail. He said he spent about $6,000 on a lawyer. Prosecutors filed a motion to drop the case last week.

“I was lucky enough, fortunate enough to be in a position to hire an attorney, challenge the charge,” Soza told the Denver Post. “But how many other Hispanic males are also being brought up in that court, not being able to [fight] it, losing jobs over it, losing opportunities? It just makes me really upset.”

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