In February 2019, I succeeded in getting the criminal charge dropped a few days before Trial when the Prosecutor was finally available to view the Video with me, and agreed Police lacked probable cause for the arrest. Be clear, this wasn't a situation where the police immediately admitted their wrongdoing and/or sought to resolve this issue on their own or apologize to Mr. Riou. This was 2 1/2 months later after Mr. Riou had to retain an Attorney to defend him and demand a Jury Trial. Neither was this a situation where they gave multiple warnings prior to arrest, the person tried to escape or fight the officer. This was a black 63-year old retired Veteran who had done nothing. He was just sitting on a public park bench across the street from home when Llanes and the Miami PD adversely changed his life forever. In fact, Mr. Riou was so traumatized by what they did that he wouldn't even attend Court with me on 02/25/19 to hear the Prosecutor officially drop the charge.
In fact, when Mr. Riou came to me about what happened after the arrest occurred December 10, 2018, he didn't even know he had a criminal case against him. After all, he'd never been arrested. I had to show and explain the criminal proceedings to him in the system after reading the police report, and of course we first had to work to clear his name. We were prepared to fight this all the way before the Prosecutor dropped the charge. Reasonably, Mr. Riou was afraid to release this video and information prior to resolution of the criminal charge in fear that the police would fabricate further evidence during the pendency of the proceeding. He said "I was scared for my life" as police "descended on me like S.W.A.T.! I was thinking they could kill me and my children would never have known what happened to me."