Millcreek, motorist settle lawsuit over his arrest related to remarks against Trump

For a Millcreek Township motorist who unleashed an anti-Trump tirade while behind the wheel, the value of free speech is $17,500.

The township has paid the motorist, Thomas Sebastian, that much money to settle a federal lawsuit he filed over the Millcreek police's arrest of him in September 2022.

The police took Sebastian into custody outside his apartment shortly after he made obscenity-laced comments about the former president while Sebastian was driving on West 12th Street.

The police charged Sebastian with the summary offenses of public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. A magistrate acquitted him of both counts in October 2022.

Sebastian in January 2023 sued the township and the two police officers who were at the scene of his arrest. He claimed they violated his First Amendment right to free speech and his Fourth Amendment and 14th Amendment rights "to be free from unlawful arrest, unlawful use of force and malicious prosecution."

The township denied the claims in court filings. It argued that the police officers acted in good faith and that Sebastian and his lawyer, Richard Filippi, lacked evidence to prove the Sebastian's arrest grew out of illegal policies at the Millcreek Police Department.

The case never got to the stage where the parties argued their points in court.

Sebastian, 64, and the township settled the case and moved to have it dismissed on Jan. 2. U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter ordered the case dismissed on Friday.

The court records did not include the settlement agreement. The Erie Times-News filed a Right-to-Know request for the deal, and the township provided a copy on Monday.

Sebastian received $17,500 to end his case against the township and the two police officers, Jose Delgado Jr. and Jason Shrader, according to the settlement agreement. The deal states that Sebastian agreed to discharge his claims against the township, the two police officers and the township's insurer on the case, Zurich American Insurance Co.

Settlement agreement prohibits parties from commenting

The township and the police officers continue to deny liability, and the settlement is not to be "construed or considered" an admission of liability, according to the settlement.

Further details — including how much the township and its insurer paid — were not immediately available. The settlement agreement includes a clause that prohibits those involved in the case from providing information on the case.

"The parties have agreed that there will be no public comment regarding any matters pertinent to this lawsuit," according to the agreement. It also states that Millcreek Township acknowledges that release of the settlement could be subject to the Right-to-Know Law, but Millcreek is only to release a copy of the deal, if required, and to make no public comment.

A caller complains, and Millcreek police make an arrest

The Millcreek police's interaction with Sebastian became public at his summary trial, which the Erie Times-News attended, and through the filings in his case in federal court.

The Millcreek police charged Sebastian after officers said they received complaints about him shouting about Trump and driving erratically while his Volkswagen Jetta was at the intersection of West 12th Street and Peninsula Drive at about 3:48 p.m. on Sept. 22, 2022. Sebastian was alone in the car.

Sebastian said he shouted the curse-filled comments about Trump and his family after hearing a radio commentator talk about the former president. He made the remarks while he was stopped at a red light at the intersection at West 12th and Peninsula Drive.

A caller complained to the Millcreek Police Department about the behavior of the driver of the Jetta, according to a response to Sebastian's lawsuit that the township filed in court. The caller, according to the response, reported "an individual who was driving erratically and dangerously along West 12th Street, possibly involved in road rage, who was weaving in and out of traffic and yelling aggressively at other motorists."

About 30 minutes later, Millcreek police arrested Sebastian outside his apartment on West 12th Street, about a third of a mile west of the Peninsula Drive intersection. The police followed Sebastian to the apartment based on information from the caller, who said Sebastian exited West 12th Street in that area, according to the response.

Police locked Sebastian in a holding cell at the Millcreek police station and charged him with the summary offenses of public drunkenness and disorderly conduct, related to obscene comments police said he directed at officers. He was jailed for several hours.

Millcreek magistrate finds Sebastian not guilty, and he sues

Sebastian was acquitted of the charges on Oct. 11, 2022, after he represented himself at a summary trial before Millcreek District Judge Laurie Mikielski. If convicted, he could have faced up to 90 days in the Erie County Prison and a $300 fine on each count.

Sebastian at the trial testified that he had made the comments about Trump while he was heading home from work after stopping at a bar. He testified he had two beers at a bar earlier in the day, drinking them about two hours apart.

Sebastian said he was not intoxicated, and that police had no reason to arrest him and charge him. He also said he was not driving erratically — an assertion he also made in his lawsuit.

"What they did to me was very unfair," Sebastian told Mikielski at the summary trial. "They had no right to do that to me."

The arresting officer, Delgado, handled the prosecution at the summary trial and was the only witness for the prosecution. He presented no body camera video of the incident, and said that he did not test Sebastian for DUI.

According to Delgado's testimony, Sebastian was "agitated" when he came to the apartment door to meet Delgado and the other officer, identified in the lawsuit as Shrader. Delgado said he told Sebastian the police were there on a report that Sebastian had been "yelling at cars about Donald Trump" and driving in an "erratic" manner.

Delgado testified Sebastian "showed signs of impairment" at the apartment. He said Sebastian knocked over a lamp and a figurine on a table while he was taking off a jacket.

Delgado said he could have investigated Sebastian for DUI, but told him to stay at his apartment and not go anywhere.

After the police left the apartment, according to testimony, Sebastian walked out of his apartment and to his car to retrieve his cellphone.

Sebastian said the police came up to him.

"I'm not (expletive) driving," Sebastian said, according to Delgado's testimony. Sebastian said he made the statement as he was questioning the police about why they were arresting him.

Delgado and the officer took Sebastian to the ground and handcuffed him.

"While this was being carried out," Sebastian claimed in his lawsuit, "Plaintiff was subject to verbal ridicule, humiliation and taunts."

Millcreek says officers acted properly in arrest

The township denied the claims in the response it filed in court. The township said the police officers believed Sebastian was intoxicated based on his behavior at his apartment, and that they wanted to "prevent him from driving his vehicle" and leaving the scene.

The officers, according to the response, "were then forced to place hands on Mr. Sebastian to prevent him from leaving. During this brief encounter, in order to overcome his resistance, the officers placed Mr. Sebastian on the ground and handcuffed him."

At all times, the township also said in the response, the "police officers acted with and pursuant to a good-faith belief that their actions were lawful, justified, reasonable and keeping with their proper duties."

Now-former police chief pulled into First Amendment case

In another response filed in court, the township argued that Sebastian had failed to prevent enough evidence that Millcreek's police chief at the time of the incident, Scott Heidt, endorsed illegal policies.

Filiippi, Sebastian's lawyer, argued in a court filing that Heidt "approved of a policy which allowed the Millcreek Police Department to wrongfully detain, arrest and seize individuals" such as Sebastian.

Filippi based his argument on what Heidt told the Erie Times-News about the case in its story, published in October 2022, on Sebastian's arrest and acquittal. Heidt told the Times-News he was aware of the case, and had watched the police's body camera video of the incident.

Heidt, among other things, also said the police wanted to make sure Sebastian wasn't "going to get into his car and drive anywhere again."

Sebastian's suit claimed the comments showed that Heidt — who retired in January 2023 — "encouraged, tolerated, ratified and was deliberately indifferent to" Sebastian's constitutional rights.

Prominent among those rights, according to the lawsuit, was Sebastian's right to make comments about Trump.

"Political views are protected under the First Amendment," Sebastian said after his acquittal in October 2022. "It is your right to express your own views in your house or in your car."

His lawsuit asserted the same point.

Sebastian, according to the suit, told the Millcreek officers who came to his apartment that "he had every right to verbally express his opinion regarding Donald Trump while in his own motor vehicle."

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Settlement ends lawsuit tied to Millcreek motorist's anti-Trump tirade