Pregnant woman wrongfully accused of robbery, carjacking because of 'unreliable' facial recognition technology: Lawsuit

A pregnant woman in Michigan was wrongfully arrested after faulty facial recognition technology "implicated [her] as a suspect" in a violent robbery and carjacking, a new lawsuit claims.

On Thursday, an attorney representing Porcha Woodruff, 32, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan, claiming that members of the Detroit Police Department made a series of missteps that resulted in Woodruff's wrongful arrest earlier this year, when she was then eight months pregnant.

The events leading to the arrest began on January 29, when a 25-year-old man contacted the DPD and reported that he had been robbed at gunpoint by a man coordinating with a female co-conspirator. The victim claimed that he had met the female suspect and that the two had engaged in sexual relations soon afterward. The same day, the victim and the woman stopped by a BP gas station, where the woman "interacted with several individuals," court documents said.

The victim and the woman then traveled to another location, where a male suspect robbed the victim of his wallet, cell phone, and car. The victim told police that the male suspect was one of the "individuals" with whom his former lover had "interacted" at the gas station. She allegedly returned his cell phone to the gas station two days later.

Surveillance footage from the gas station provided images of the female suspect, which Detective LaShauntia Oliver of the Detroit Police Department then viewed. She made "no mention" that the woman on video had been visibly pregnant, court documents claimed.

Oliver also ran the images of the female suspect through facial recognition technology. The technology then "implicated" Porcha Woodruff "as a suspect" in the case because of an "unreliable facial recognition match" with an old mug shot of Woodruff for an alleged expired driver's license in 2015, the lawsuit stated.

Though police had access to a more recent photo of Woodruff because of her current driver's license, they then included the old mug shot photo of her in photo lineup presented to the victim, the lawsuit alleged. The victim identified Woodruff as the woman who had scammed him.

Additionally, the male suspect was arrested after he was discovered driving the victim's stolen vehicle. Oliver failed to show the male suspect Woodruff's picture for possible identification, the lawsuit contended.

On February 16, about a half-dozen officers arrived at the Detroit-area home Woodruff shared with her fiancé and children. Because of her advanced pregnancy, Woodruff thought the officers were "kidding" when they said they were there to arrest her in connection with an alleged violent incident.

But the arrest was no joke. Woodruff was placed in handcuffs and taken to jail. While in custody, Woodruff, a nursing student, claimed she began to experience some medical concerns, including "contractions," back "spasms," and possibly "a panic attack." After 11 hours at the detention facility, she was released on $100,000 bond, at which point, her fiancé took her to an area hospital, where she was diagnosed with a low heart rate from dehydration.

Less than three weeks later, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office dropped the case against Woodruff, citing "insufficient evidence." Though the charges were dropped, the warrant for Woodruff's arrest "was appropriate based upon the facts," said a statement from the prosecutor's office.

Woodruff and her attorney, Ivan Land, say otherwise. "If [police] were to just take a five-minute drive to her home, they would have saw her condition being eight months and they would have known that she was not the individual who committed the crimes of carjacking and robbery," Land claimed.

Detroit Police Chief James E. White issued a statement in response to the lawsuit: "We are taking this matter very seriously, but we cannot comment further at this time due to the need for additional investigation. We will provide further information once additional facts are obtained and we have a better understanding of the circumstances."

Detective Oliver did not respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

It is not clear what the plaintiff is seeking in the lawsuit. The city of Detroit has also been listed as a defendant.

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