Fighting Back Against Federal Kidnapping

Chances are, at some point in your life, your first and last names matched a criminal suspect’s name or alias. For Penny McCarthy, that was enough for federal law enforcement officers to—without warning—nab her off her own driveway at gunpoint, shackle her arms and legs, lock her up in a federal detention facility far from home, and strip search her three times.

This happened in Phoenix, Arizona, in March 2024. Before arresting Penny, U.S. Marshals did not let her show them her driver’s license or any other documents. She wasn’t allowed to lock her house, tend to her barking dog, retrieve her purse, or let anyone in her life know what was happening. The officers were in plain clothes and vests, were driving unmarked vehicles, and ordered her (on threat of being tased) not to look at them. And they took her behind a grocery store to swap vehicles before taking her to the U.S. Marshals office.

Penny understandably thought she was being kidnapped.

The officers were after Carole Anne Rozak, not Penny Lynn McCarthy. Carole Rozak was wanted on a 25-year-old warrant out of Oklahoma for failing to check in with a probation officer after being released from prison in Texas for nonviolent crimes. 

The only connection between the two women was Rozak’s alleged use of the name Penny Burns for some time. Burns was Penny’s maiden name for the first 17 years of her life. (Hundreds of other people in the United States are named Penny Burns, and about 165,000 people have the last name Burns.)

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Had they run a basic check into Penny’s identity, it would have been obvious that they had the wrong person. No reasonable officer could mistake Penny for Carole. 

But the marshals had no interest in confirming Penny’s identity. They ignored Penny’s insistence that she was not that person. To make matters worse, an officer who was not qualified to compare fingerprints claimed that Penny’s fingerprints matched Rozak’s. That was simply false, as the government later admitted.

Penny was entirely innocent. Yet she spent more than 24 hours in federal custody. In addition to being shackled, fingerprinted, and repeatedly searched, her mug shot and a DNA sample were taken, and she was forced to take a pregnancy test—at 66 years of age—before being locked in a cold cell without a blanket.

The officers’ errors and treatment of Penny are inexcusable and unconstitutional—and they violate several Arizona laws. But because federal officials rarely answer for their unlawful conduct, there is no incentive for them to behave differently—in Penny’s case, to simply check the identity of the person they arrest. Penny joins a host of other IJ clients who aim to hold government officials accountable for egregious and preventable mistakes, with the hope that no one else will fall subject to the same terrifying experience. Whether involving a mistaken arrest or a wrong-house raid, the courthouse doors should not be closed to an innocent victim of officers’ brazen disregard for civil liberties.

Marie Miller is an IJ attorney.