A California Highway Patrol officer and sergeant must pay $5 million to a Sonoma County man for violating his constitutional rights in an unlawful arrest, an Oakland federal jury decided Monday.
The jury found that CHP Officer Jayce Ray and Sgt. John Snider acted with “malice, recklessness, oppression or a conscious or reckless disregard” for the rights of Nicholas La Motte when they arrested him without probable cause in April 2023 for driving under the influence.
La Motte testified last week that around 1:30 a.m. on April 25, 2023, he was driving home from visiting his grandmother in San Francisco. While driving northbound on U.S. 101, he noticed he was being followed by a car — it was Ray in his cruiser…