Jewish Cop Accused of Framing Innocent Man With Fake Drug Charge
Lawsuit claims officers made up a story about a man swallowing drugs to cover up an illegal arrest, despite no evidence and invasive searches coming up empty.
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It started as a traffic stop. It ended in humiliation, trauma, and a lawsuit that could shake the Lakewood Police Department to its core.
In a new complaint filed in New Jersey Superior Court in Ocean County, David Lantigua says Lakewood police officers arrested him without cause, then tried to cover it up with an elaborate lie, that he had swallowed a bag of drugs while handcuffed in the back of a patrol car.
But no drugs were ever found. Not during multiple vehicle searches. Not during a forced hospital visit. Not even after a body cavity search. Still, one officer insisted Lantigua had somehow consumed narcotics, and pushed charges that could have led to prison time.
“This wasn’t policing, it was perjury with a badge,” the lawsuit says.
The officer at the center of the story is Patrolman Joseph Mandelbaum, who allegedly fabricated the drug-swallowing claim. According to the complaint, the entire narrative was invented to justify Lantigua’s false arrest when nothing illegal was ever discovered.
Lantigua says the fallout from that day in September 2022 wrecked his life. He lost job opportunities, missed his child’s medical appointments, and continues to suffer emotional trauma.
The suit also names several other Lakewood officers with checkered pasts. Officer James Mahecha, for example, is already facing a separate federal lawsuit for a similar false arrest. Sergeant Matthew McKee, identified in the suit only as “Badge #320”, was behind the wheel during a three-car crash just two months ago, a collision that led to two quietly settled lawsuits and serious injuries.
Lakewood’s police department hasn’t publicly responded to the new allegations, but the lawsuit is already raising serious questions about accountability and misconduct inside the department.
Filed by Newark civil rights attorneys Brooke M. Barnett and Morgan Mahler, the lawsuit demands compensatory and punitive damages for false arrest, conspiracy, unlawful search and seizure, malicious prosecution, and destruction of evidence.
For Lantigua, the message is painfully clear: “I was innocent. They knew it. And they ruined my life anyway.”