Animal advocate wins malicious prosecution suit

McAfee sued Christine M. Boczar, a Powhatan County deputy sheriff and animal control officer, after being acquitted last year on a charge of withholding information about the location of a possibly rabid animal. McAfee said she could have just let the matter drop after the criminal charge was dismissed, but she and her husband felt she needed to take a stand.

“There was no way to take back what they did to me, but we could do this for others,” McAfee said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Speaking through an associate, Boczar referred questions to her attorney, Michael Ward.

“We haven’t decided one way or another whether to appeal,” Ward said, adding that further comment would be inappropriate because some post-trial motions are still pending.

According to the lawsuit, this is what happened:

In December 2010, a friend of McAfee told her about a dog chained in a Powhatan County yard without suitable shelter. The friend accompanied McAfee to check on the dog, but McAfee did not record the route or obtain the dog owner’s name before leaving.

A few days later, still concerned, McAfee bought a doghouse and again was accompanied by her friend to deliver it. After the doghouse was set up, McAfee fed the dog a treat and was bitten on the hand. She was treated at a hospital, and the bite was reported to Powhatan animal control.

Boczar asked McAfee for the dog’s address. McAfee said she did not know it, but she might be able to find the house. She suggested they meet with the same friend who guided her there the first two times. Boczar said she was too busy, and that was the last McAfee heard about the matter until police arrived three days later and hauled her away from her home in a marked cruiser to be booked and fingerprinted in Powhatan.

A General District Court judge dismissed the criminal charge in May 2011.

“It was pretty awful to go through,” McAfee said of her arrest and trial.

But there was more unpleasantness ahead as she sought vindication in her civil suit. McAfee said she offered to settle for a public apology and attorney fees, but the counter offer was “a secret apology” and $4,500 — far less than she would owe her lawyers.

McAfee said she believes Boczar, who denied the allegations against her in court papers, initially confused her with another animal welfare advocate she had dealt with previously. During the interview, she played a taped telephone conversation in which Boczar discussed the arrest with a dispatcher and predicted that McAfee “won’t be back” to Powhatan County.

“I tell you we see every kook in the world out here,” Boczar says on the tape, which was uncovered during discovery in the civil case.

On the first day of the civil trial, U.S. District Judge Robert Payne dismissed a false imprisonment claim. After hearing two days of testimony and deliberating for more than nine hours over two days, the jury found for McAfee on a federal malicious prosecution claim and for Boczar on a similar state law count. The jury awarded McAfee the amount she spent on a lawyer, a private investigator and a court reporter in her criminal trial but did not award any punitive damages. Boczar also expects the judge to award her attorney fees in the civil case.

McAfee said her lawsuit wasn’t about money, so she’s satisfied with the outcome even though the case has taken a toll.

“I’m really worn out from it, but I’m really glad I did it,” McAfee said.

Robin Starr, CEO of the Richmond Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said she, too, is glad that McAfee fought back.

“It concerns us when we see people trying to do good things for animals targeted by what would seem to be animus,” Starr said. “It goes into the category of ‘no good deed goes unpunished.'”

___

Follow Larry O’Dell on Twitter: http://twitter.com/LarryOatAP