31st District California State Senator Sabrina Cervantes has sued the City of Sacramento, four identified officers in its police department and as many as 20 of their unidentified law enforcement colleagues in the aftermath of her arrest last year on charges of driving under the influence, an accusation authorities now acknowledge had no basis in fact.
According to the suit, filed on April 6 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Cervantes was “targeted by Sacramento police officers and subjected to a baseless DUI investigation and arrest” following a crash that occurred on May 19, 2025 at approximately 12:55 p.m. as she was headed east on S Street in a state-issued Toyota Camry to the state Capitol building for a legislative session when a Ford Explorer headed north on 14th Street failed yield at a stop sign and broadsided her. The lawsuit contends at least four of the department’s officers engaged in official misconduct; that two of the officers engaged in perjury; that three of the officers lied with regard to the crash and the events of its aftermath, including one officer who lied to another officer; that the most senior of the four officers conspired with the others to have Cervantes falsely arrested and charged; and that the officers, either singly or collectively were responsible for making misrepresentations to a judge and state officials.
The attorneys representing Cervantes – James Quadra, Rebecca Coll and Robert Sanford – seized upon the results of a toxicology test done on blood drawn from Cervantes at the hospital to which she had been driven in the immediate aftermath of the accident which indisputably established that she had no alcohol nor drugs in her system to make their case that the police had no grounds to effectuate the driving under the influence arrest.
Quadra, Coll and Sanford were able to further credibly contradict the police department’s assertion that the officers had reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause to believe Cervantes was intoxicated by using the officers’ bodyworn video cameras with audio recording capability to show that Cervantes was not evincing signs of intoxication – an unsteady gait and slurred speech – which the officers cited in their arrest reports and in the application for a warrant provided to a judge to forcefully draw blood from her.
It was the application for that warrant that the officers perhaps went furthest with regard to both violating Cervantes rights and engaging in criminal activity of their own, according to Quadra, Coll and Sanford. In that application, an assertion was made that the issuance of the warrant was necessary because Cervantes was refusing to comply with a request for the testing of her blood. In actuality, the audio portion of the video of the exchange between Cervantes and one of the officers demonstrates Cervantes told the officer she wanted to yield to the far more scientifically sound and objective testing of her blood rather than taking a far less scientifically accurate and subjective eye movement field sobriety test that he was requesting.
A statement under the penalty of perjury was then made by one of the officers to the magistrate requesting the warrant to the effect hat Cervantes was being uncooperative in the effort to determine whether she had been driving under the influence. That representation was made despite Cervantes having already agreed to the drawing of her blood at the hospital and providing access to the testing results to the department. The police officer seeking the court order omitted from the affidavit submitted to the judge that the officer who had questioned the state senator had informed her when he made the request that she submit to the eye movement test that she had a constitutional right to refuse to take the test.
The lawsuit makes note of proposed legislation Cervantes had sponsored earlier that year aimed at regulating and limiting the use of license plate readers, a key piece of enforcement technology that has boosted the effectiveness of police operations but which critics say is subject to misuse and abuse and represents a threat to civil liberties. The lawsuit suggests it was resentment toward Cervantes with regard to this legislation that motivated the Sacramento Police Department to abuse its authority in falsely arresting her.
Quadra, Coll and Sanford claim to have an advantage in the case they are pursuing on Cervantes’ behalf by virtue of the verbal exchanges captured by the audio function of the bodyworn video cameras in use by the officers when they engaged with the driver who ran the stop sign and essentially T-boned Cervantes as well as with one another during their response to the accident scene and during the follow-up investigation. Those videos and their accompanying audio tracks establish that the officer who encountered the other driver was highly indulgent of her, allowed her to continue with a cell phone call she was engaged in when the officer came upon her, did not, as was done with Cervantes, come close enough to her to be able to detect whether there might be alcohol on her breath, did not require her to get out of her vehicle, did not seek to or actually have her perform a field sobriety test and, when he raised the issue of whether driving while intoxicated was an issue, phrased it as a statement – “No alcohol today, right” – rather than directly questioning her as to that issue, as was done with Cervantes. An exchange between the officers established that they had concluded early on that it was not Cervantes who was at fault in the accident but rather the other driver. Nevertheless, the members of the department – individually and collectively – angled toward establishing that Cervantes was driving while intoxicated.
Moreover, the officers utilized their understanding of a circumstance which was knowingly misrepresented to Cervantes in an effort to strengthen the accusation of driving under the influence against her. The T-boning of her car as well as her last-second maneuvering had driven Cervantes into the oncoming lane of traffic, such that when her car came to a stop, she was parked against the curb facing the traffic flow. After the accident, she had summoned her senatorial office’s chief of staff to the scene, where permission had been granted for her to go to the hospital for precautionary treatment of the injuries she had sustained in the accident. At the time she left to seek medical attention, the state-issued vehicle she had been driving when the accident occurred was where it had come to rest, facing westbound traffic on S Street. After she was en route to the hospital, the individual who oversees the motor pool for the state legislature had come to the location and moved the car so that it was no longer parked facing the flow of traffic. When the officers, who knew the car had been moved, arrived at the hospital, they insinuated into their questioning of Cervantes with regard to the accident suggestions about the position of the two involved vehicles that they knew, or logically should have understood, would produce an answer from her that would be inconsistent with where her car had been positioned after the accident which by inference – indeed a false one – that would support the conclusion that she was intoxicated. Thus, by being honest and straightforward and having a clear, unimpeded and unimpaired recollection of what had occurred, which was actually an indication that she was not under the influence of any illicit substances or alcohol, Cervantes fell into a trap set by the officers intended to serve as a false but nevertheless credible indicator that she might be intoxicated, which then served as evidence used, disingenuously and intellectually dishonestly, against her in the effort to seek a warrant.
The department did not wait to obtain the results of the chemical analysis of the blood drawn from Cervantes, but on the basis of what the officers, it turned out erroneously, claimed were “objective signs of intoxication,” issued her a citation – tantamount to an arrest – for driving under the influence. Thereafter, members of the department compounded the previous action through further misrepresentations to the Department of Motor Vehicles in preparation for Cervantes’ hearing regarding the pending suspension of her driving license and, according to a release by Quadra, “by leaking false claims to the media that Senator Cervantes had been driving under the influence, damaging her reputation and public standing.”
The four Sacramento police department employees named in the lawsuit are officers Daniel Williams, Bailey Foster and Kevin Lucas and Sergeant Kristin Beal.
According to Quadra, Coll and Sanford, Officer Williams deactivated his body camera at one point for five minutes as part of his effort to frame Cervantes with regard to the false driving while intoxicated charge. The department was unable to produce or otherwise withheld production of the footage from Sergeant Beal’s bodyworn camera, despite Beal having gone to the hospital to interview Senator Cervantes on May 19, 2025.
According to the lawsuit, “In order to obtain the warrant against plaintiff, defendant Lucas signed a warrant affidavit under penalty of perjury when he made multiple false statements. Defendant Lucas falsely stated that Senator Cervantes had refused to submit to a blood test. Defendant Lucas also falsely claimed that Senator Cervantes had an unsteady gait, slurred speech and an appearance of drowsiness, and, even if any of those statements had been truthful, Defendant Lucas concealed the material facts that Senator Cervantes had been injured in a car crash and had told officers that her back and the whole side of her body was in pain. Outrageously, the warrant affidavit cited Senator Cervantes’ alleged refusal to undergo a subjective sobriety test as reason for the alleged probable cause to issue a warrant, yet concealed the material fact that Officer Williams repeatedly reiterated to Senator Cervantes that she had the absolute right to refuse the purely voluntary test. Officer Lucas also failed to disclose the source and basis of key supposed observations, preventing the judge from independently evaluating the reliability of it and implying that Officer Lucas was involved in the investigation.”
Lucas was not at the hospital but rather at police headquarters in the minutes and hours following the accident.
While Cervantes was at the hospital, awaiting an examination by medical personnel, she engaged directly with at least three personnel from the police department, those being Foster, Williams and Beal. As Cervantes was being pressed to allow the officers to proceed with the investigation into whether she was under the influence in accordance with a protocol they had structured, she signaled that she was willing to have an analysis of her blood done and that she considered such an evaluation as being preferable to a horizontal gaze nystagmus, a test which relies on a police officer subjectively judging the eyes’ response to stimulus. Quadra, Coll and Sanford maintain in the suit that “After Senator Cervantes’ blood was drawn, Officer Williams completed a false statement under penalty of perjury stating that Senator Cervantes had refused to complete a chemical test after her arrest in violation of California Vehicle Code § 23612, and that Senator Cervantes had refused to state what time she stopped driving. This false statement was transmitted by unknown personnel of the Sacramento Police Department, an agency of the City of Sacramento, to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.”
In this way, according to the lawsuit, Foster pushed for the department to seek a court order for the blood test even though Cervantes had already agreed to provide one voluntarily. The depiction of Senator Cervantes was in this regard a false one which was and remains damaging to her reputation, according to Quadra, Coll and Sanford.
Working in tandem, Williams and Foster sought to manufacture a case that Cervantes was intoxicated, according to the lawsuit. While at the hospital interviewing Cervantes, who had been injured and was in pain, Williams, with Foster nearby, pressed the state senator about how it was that she drove to the curb after she was struck. She explained that her vehicle had been propelled to the opposite side of the street she had been driving on, and to avoid oncoming traffic, she steered over to the curb on the left side of the street. At the time she was being questions, she was unaware that the head of the legislature’s fleet management division, Alex Cruz, had moved the vehicle from the curb facing oncoming traffic on S Street to a safe spot on 14th Street, and therefore was somewhat disoriented as to the actual circumstance by Williams’ references, statements and questions about the car being found around the corner on 14th Street. Williams had, however, spoken to Cervantes’ chief of staff, Cesar Anda, who told him that the Toyota Camry Cervantes was driving was at the curb on S Street facing traffic when he arrived at the accident scene.
A few minutes later, Officer Foster, in a phone call to police headquarters in which he engaged in a conversation with someone he referred to as “Sarge,” stated, “I do think she is intoxicated – the state senator.” Foster did not tell the sergeant that Cervantes had offered to have the hospital disclose her blood test results to determine her state of sobriety. He stated, demonstrably falsely based upon the recordings of Cervantes’ exchanges with the officers, that she was slurring her words. Then, a few minutes later, he had a second phone exchange with “Sarge” in which he said that Cervantes “story” did not “add up,” because of where the state vehicle was found parked after the accident, even though Foster had been present when Cervantes’ chief of staff, Anda, explained that the car was parked on S Street when he arrived at the accident location, and even through neither Officer Foster nor Officer Williams ever asked anyone if the vehicle had been moved after Cervantes left for the hospial. The position of the Toyota Camry driven by Cervantes immediately after accident is indisputable, based on a nearby security camera video obtained by the Sacramento Police Department.
At one point during the afternoon of May 19, 2025 after Foster was in touch with someone at police headquarters, according to Quadra, Coll and Sanford, Foster told Williams, “No matter what, we’re writing a warrant.”
Both Williams and Foster were complicit in stampeding toward falsely charging with Cervantes with driving while intoxicated, Quadra, Coll and Sanford maintain. “Defendants Foster and Williams did not have probable cause for a warrant; in fact, body cam footage reveals Defendant Williams commenting, ‘If I had to make a wild guess, there is a possibility – I have a reasonable suspicion that she has something on board.’” the lawsuit states. “On board” is apparently law enforcement slang for someone being under the influence of drugs.
“Neither reasonable suspicion nor a ‘wild guess’ is a basis to effect a lawful arrest in California nor to seek a warrant,” the lawsuit states.
According to Quadra, Coll and Sanford, at one time or another during their encounters with Cevantes, Sergeant Beal and officers Williams and Foster shut their bodyworn cameras off.
This was in defiance of Sacramento Police Department General Order 525.07 (F) (1), which states “Once their body camera is activated, employees shall not deactivate bodyworn cameras until the investigation enforcement is concluded.” Sacramento Police Department General Order 525.07 (F) (4) states “Employees shall audibly record the reason for deactivation in all instances.”
“Sergeant Beal directed that a warrant be requested to draw Senator Cervantes’ blood desite lack of probable cause,” according to Quadra, Coll and Sanford. “Defendants Williams and Foster conspired with Defendant Lucas and Sergeant Beal to fabricate probable cause for a warrant. Senator Cervantes is informed and believes that defendants Williams, Foster and Lucas acted at the direction of Defendant Beal in violating Senator Cervantes’ rights. Senator Cervantes is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges, that the city is liable for the constitutional violations alleged herein because the city’s officials or employees, acting under color of law, deprived a person of [her] particular rights under the United States Constitution.
According to Quadra, Coll and Sanford, it appears the Sacramento Police Department had animus toward Cervantes because of legislation she had written which hamstrung the department.
According to the lawsuit, Cervantes introduced Senate Bill 275 on January 4, 2025 “to curb potential abuses by law enforcement agencies, including the Sacramento Police Department, associated with the use of automated license plate reader systems.”
Automated license plate readers photograph license plates and use algorithmic information processing systems and access to databases, which thereby, the lawsuit says, “allow for the widespread and systematic collection of license plate information” and the operators of those vehicles and their recurrent and shifting whereabouts. That technology, according to the lawsuit “can be a useful law enforcement tool” but also “poses serious risks to privacy when misused. SB 274 addressed these privacy risks. Law enforcement agencies and associations throughout California opposed California SB 274, arguing it would hinder their ability to solve crimes.”
The collective law enforcement agency resentment toward Cervantes manifested in the underhanded effort to destroy her reputation when the events of May 19, 2025 unfolded, according to Quadra, Coll and Sanford.
“Rather than accept Senator Cervantes’ offer to have the hospital provide test results to the officers, Officer Williams responded that they could not accept the hospital’s test result because they are protected by Senator Cervantes’ privacy rights,” the lawsuit sates. “Obviously, Senator Cervantes was able to consent to disclosure of drug and alcohol tests (which the hospital performed and which were negative), but Officers Williams and Foster wanted to perform their less accurate and subjective test instead of accepting the chemical tests performed by the hospital. During defendants Williams and Foster’s initial interview of Senator Cervantes, which lasted approximately ten minutes, Senator Cervantes did not slur her words, walk with an unsteady gait, smell of alcohol, or have any indicators of being under the influence. She was suffering from a spine injury and was in pain, which caused her to move with care, but she did not sway , stumble, weave back and forth as she walked down a long hallway from the emergency room waiting area to be interviewed, or give any other indication of being under the influence.” Despite Senator Cervantes innocence, unknown actors who are named as Defendant Does 1 through 20 released to the press and/or other third parties the false claim that Senator Cervantes had been driving under the influence, to the detriment of Senator Cervantes’ reputation.”
Those employed by the City of Sacramento and its police department to speak officially on their behalf, declined comment. A member of the police department knowledgeable about what had occurred and the fallout that has ensued internally told the Sentinel, “This one isn’t going to come out well, obviously.”