A lawsuit against the Philadelphia Police Department, city Detective Kathryn Gordon and Philadelphia resident Lauren Houck alleging that police improperly executed a search warrant in late August 2009 was dismissed in favor of defendants on Oct. 10, 2013 by District Judge Stewart Dalzell.
The complaint was originally filed on Oct. 18, 2011 at the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, and later removed to federal court by defendants.
It alleged that the search stemmed from false allegations involving kidnapping, robbery and sexual assault.
The lawsuit claimed that a search warrant was “vague and does not specifically describe the property to be seized but uses generic descriptions of items to be seized such as records, information written or electronically stored, clothing, jewelry, keys and ‘any and all other items of evidentiary value.’”
“The number of invalid portions of the warrant, which is one element in analyzing the validity of the search warrant, so predominate the search warrant that, in essence, the warrant authorized a general exploratory rummaging of Plaintiff’s belongings,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit also claimed that police failed to attach a copy of the affidavit of probable cause to the search warrant, which is required under Pennsylvania’s Rules of Criminal Procedure.
Further, it claimed that investigators seized items that were “not at all described in the search warrant.”
The Philadelphia Common Pleas Court ID number for the case is 110803146.