PORTLAND — The civil trial of a convicted drug dealer serving time at a federal prison in Florida who is suing Auburn police officers for use of excessive force started this week in federal court.
Romelly Dastinot, who lived in Lewiston in 2014, alleged in a civil complaint filed in 2018 in U.S. District Court that three local officers used excessive force in making a false arrest against him.
He is representing himself in the case.
Dastinot wrote in his 10-page complaint that he had been waiting for a taxi outside the Naral Club in Auburn the night of Feb. 15, 2014, when he was accosted by a local police lieutenant who questioned Dastinot and his friends about why they were outside the club.
When he explained that they were waiting for their cab, Dastinot wrote that the lieutenant grabbed him and pushed him against a cruiser, patted him down and arrested him.
Another local officer used a Taser on Dastinot after he asked why he was being arrested, according to his complaint.
While he was subdued and on the ground, a third officer instructed a police dog to attack Dastinot, biting him in the leg, he wrote in his complaint.
He was taken to a hospital with “serious” leg injuries, he wrote.
Dastinot alleged officers used racial slurs twice during the incident.
He claimed his constitutional rights were violated.
Dastinot wrote that he has suffered physical and emotional scars from the incident.
He is seeking $250,000 in compensatory damages and that same amount in punitive damages from each of the officers involved.
A jury was picked Monday for the trial, which began Tuesday with testimony from witnesses.
The trial is expected to last until Thursday.
Dastinot was indicted in connection with the incident on charges of assault on an officer, refusing to submit to arrest and disorderly conduct.
Three months later, he was arrested as part of a multi-agency drug sweep in the Lewiston area and in Massachusetts after months of investigation that ultimately netted more than a dozen people accused of being conspirators, police said.
Dastinot, who was 35 year old at that time, was identified as the ringleader of a Lewiston drug trafficking ring that purchased heroin, crack cocaine, oxycodone pills and other drugs in Massachusetts to sell in Maine.
He was eventually sentenced to serve 14 years in federal prison.
Investigators had used phone taps, surveillance and undercover work to learn that Dastinot and his co-defendants had been transporting drugs from Massachusetts and elsewhere back to the Lewiston area to sell throughout Androscoggin County, court records showed.
Dastinot, also known by the street name Marcus, pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute heroin, crack cocaine and oxycodone.
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