AURORA | A Denver man cleared of several DUI and drug charges this April is now suing the city of Aurora and a local cop for allegedly foisting cocaine into a lunchbox in his car and then arresting him.
An attorney representing Nakiko Diallo, 34, filed a civil rights complaint in U.S. District Court Friday against the city and Aurora police officer Matthew Milligan.
The complaint claims Milligan violated Aurora Police Department policy several times during a traffic stop in November of 2016, and allegedly planted cocaine, a scale and small baggies in a lunchbox in the back of Diallo’s car.
Diallo is asking for an unspecified amount of monetary compensation in the suit, citing “humiliation, inconvenience, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life,” and other grievances.
Attorney Brad Kloewer of the Denver-based law firm Furtado Law filed the complaint in U.S. District Court in Denver Nov. 9 — exactly two years after Diallo was first pulled over.
Diallo originally faced five charges: possession of a controlled substance, intent to manufacture or distribute a controlled substance, DUI, consumption of alcohol in a motor vehicle, and a tail light violation.
He was acquitted of all charges by a jury this April after spending 17 months in jail. There was no bond set in Diallo’s case until weeks before his trial because he was on parole for a crime from 2011, according to the complaint.
The suit alleges Milligan pulled Diallo over shortly before midnight on Nov. 9, 2016 near the corner of Xanadu Street and East Colfax Avenue. Milligan claimed to have stopped Diallo because his car’s tail lights weren’t working, and for “flying down Colfax,” according to the lawsuit. Milligan then spotted an open beer and a bottle of tequila in Diallo’s car, but Diallo denied he had been drinking.
Along with two other Aurora police officers, Milligan proceeded to search Diallo’s car and administer a field sobriety test, which Diallo consented to.
Shortly after 1:30 a.m., footage from a police body camera shows Milligan searching Diallo’s car and inspecting a lunchbox in the back seat, according to the complaint. The footage shows no drugs in the lunchbox, and Milligan does not react to finding anything in the container.
Milligan then turns his body camera off for about four minutes, at which point the suit claims the officer plants cocaine and paraphernalia in the lunchbox. At about 1:38 a.m., Milligan instructs another officer to search the lunchbox, where police find an undisclosed amount of drugs, baggies and a scale. Officers then arrest Diallo.
Investigators with Aurora police later tested the items in the lunchbox for Diallo’s fingerprints, but didn’t find any matches, according to the complaint.
Investigators declined a request from Diallo to test the paraphernalia for Milligan’s prints, the complaint says.
At trial, Milligan admitted prints found on the contraband could be his, even though he was wearing gloves during the traffic stop.
Diallo is now asking the federal court for a new jury trial in the civil rights case.
Crystal McCoy, a spokeswoman for the Aurora Police Department, said APD has not received a summons related to the case and therefore cannot comment.
“The Aurora Police Department works cooperatively with the city attorney’s office to respond to and address all lawsuits,” McCoy wrote in an email. “At this time, the city has not been served with a complaint in the matter and cannot comment.”
Diallo has a lengthy criminal history dating back to 2002, according to records from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. He was twice sentenced to prison for felony drug charges: once in 2003 for marijuana possession and robbery, and again in 2011 for possession of more than 4 grams of a controlled substance. Aurora police filed the former charges, while the latter incident occurred in Denver, records show.