Jennifer Heath Box shivered on a mat on the floor, her back pressed against that of another prisoner, as they desperately tried to stay warm. The air conditioning blew a cool breeze through Broward County Jail In South Florida. The guards walked wearing coats and hats.
It was Christmas Eve. Her son, a Marine, was leaving the country on December 27 to spend three years in Okanawa, Japan.
The police had arrested the wrong “Jennifer”.
Jennifer Heath Box was arrested on December 24, 2022, because she shared two-thirds of her name with another woman wanted on child endangerment charges. (Fox News Digital/Broward Sheriff's Office via Justice Institute)
“The fact that it was so easy to get caught makes you wonder how many people are out there like that,” Box said. Fox News Digitalsits in her Texas home two years after she was arrested and imprisoned for three nights on someone else's warrant.
Box is now suing Broward Sheriff's OfficeAlleging that deputies violated her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure when they failed to conduct “basic due diligence to confirm whether the person they planned to arrest was actually subject to the warrant.”
“I think you have the wrong person.”
Box and her husband rushed to the front of the line, eager to get off the cruise ship on Christmas Eve 2022. They had just spent six days at sea with Box's brother, celebrating his second cancer remission. Now, Box wanted to go home to celebrate Christmas with her children, the last time the family would be together for at least three years before her son left for Okinawa.
But when she scanned her badge to get off, staff said security needed to interview Box. Police and Customs and Border Protection quickly surrounded Box and her husband.
“They asked me if I was Jennifer Heath,” she recalls. Box kept Heath as her middle name after marrying her husband.
She repeatedly asked the law enforcement officers standing around her what was happening. Eventually, they said they had a warrant for her arrest out of Harris County, Texas.
“It's child endangerment,” a deputy said.
Box's eyes went wide. “I think you all have the wrong one,” her husband said.
Police had an arrest warrant for Jennifer Delcarmen Heath, who was 23 years younger and about a half-foot shorter than Jennifer, who had just gotten off a cruise ship.
Body camera and patrol car video show Jennifer Box being arrested on Christmas Eve 2022. (Broward County Sheriff's Office via Justice Institute)
According to court filings from July 2022, Jennifer Delcarmen Heath was charged with child endangerment, between the ages of one and three.
Jennifer Heath Box, who was 48 at the time, had no minor children. The suspect in the warrant was younger than one of her daughters.
“Child endangerment? What child would I put in danger?” The box asked in amazement.
Officers handcuffed her and placed her in a Sheriff's Office SUV, with internal video showing Box continuing to insist that something must be wrong as she was being transported to the Broward County Jail.
The booking officer said she didn't see any warrants in Box's system when she checked her driver's license, but Deputy Peter Peraza insisted on booking her anyway, according to the lawsuit filed against the Sheriff's Office, Peraza, other deputies and corrections staff.
Box attorney at the Institute for Justice, A Nonprofit civil liberties law firmHe said Broward County deputies ignored at least 10 significant differences between Box and the subject of the warrant, including significant age and height disparities, different Social Security and FBI numbers and varying eye, hair and skin colors. The only information implicating Box was a copy of her photo at the DMV that was attached to the warrant.
Box felt humiliated and terrified as she was strip-searched, given a prison uniform and placed in a cold, dirty cell, where she said she witnessed constant screaming and violence in the adjacent men's area.
She woke up Christmas morning after a restless night, shaking on the floor next to a stranger, and was denied bail because the other “Jennifer” had an extradition warrant, according to the lawsuit. Harris County had up to 30 days to receive it, an officer allegedly told Box.
At home, Box's brother and husband were battling layers of bureaucracy. Harris County officials said they needed to send BSO the arrest warrant and Box's fingerprints for comparison, but BSO refused, according to the lawsuit.
Jennifer Box has three children, who were between 19 and 30 years old at the time of her arrest. The suspect on the child endangerment warrant was 25 years old, Hispanic and 5 inches shorter than Box. (Courtesy Jennifer Box)
Finally, on the evening of December 26, Box was able to file a complaint, asking the BSO to compare her fingerprints with the suspect's.
Box got out of jail around 10 a.m. on December 27. Her son was boarding his flight.
“They took things from me that I will never get back,” Box said. “I'll never be able to get that time back with my kids. I'll never get that opportunity to have those memories.”
She recalled talking to the officer who escorted her out of the detention center about all the things she missed during the holidays. She said his behavior started out as “quite arrogant”, but softened when she told him she had not been able to see her son before he left for Marines.
“Stuff happens,” Box recalled the officer saying.
This was the closest I had come to an apology.
“No employee misconduct was found.”
The Broward Sheriff's Office said Fox News Digital She said in a statement that she “sympathizes with the difficult situation Ms. Jennifer Heath-Box was in,” but blamed Harris County for the incident.
“Had it not been for the arrest warrant served by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Customs and Border Patrol would not have reported Ms. Box, BSO would not have been notified, and she would not have been arrested,” a spokesperson wrote.
“The actions of the BSO deputy involved in Ms. Box’s arrest were reviewed by the Broward Sheriff’s Office Internal Affairs Division, and no misconduct by any employee was found,” the statement added.
Justice Institute Attorney Jared McLean said that while Harris County and CBP also made mistakes in the case, that “does not excuse the conduct of Officer Peraza and the Broward County Sheriff's Office.”
“They had a duty to ensure that the person they were arresting was indeed the subject of the arrest warrant – especially in the face of Jennifer’s repeated and reliable insistence that they had arrested the wrong person.”
CBP reported Box's name to BSO before she left on the cruise, according to her attorney, giving deputies ample time to confirm her identity “before they decided to arrest the wrong Jennifer.”
Jennifer Heath Box is one of at least 160 people named “Jennifer Heath” living in Texas, according to her lawsuit. (Fox News Digital)
BSO made similar mistakes in at least two others Wrong identity According to the lawsuit, one man has been arrested, including one in which a man spent five days in jail before police fingerprinted him and confirmed he was the wrong person.
“Despite this history of imprisoning innocent people who share a name with someone with an outstanding warrant, Broward County has failed to adequately train its officers or implement new policies, practices or customs that ensure BSO employees verify the identities of arrestees,” the lawsuit alleges. .
BSO did not answer Fox's question about whether the department made any policy changes after Box's arrest.
The lawsuit seeks recognition that the defendants violated Box's constitutional rights, as well as damages.
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As Box prepared to decorate her Christmas tree this year, she told Fox News Digital that she wanted to see more checks and balances put in place so no one else had to endure what she went through.
“I want to hold these people accountable,” she said. “You're messing with people's lives. It's not just 'fun and games' or whatever, and 'I'm going to put someone behind bars, and I'm going to check the box, and I'm going home to my family.'” “I hurt a lot of people in that situation besides just myself.”
Elizabeth Hickman contributed to the accompanying video.
