FHP Trooper Files Million Dollar Harassment Suit
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
By: Tom Parkinson

December 26, 2012 | WMFE - A Florida Highway Patrol trooper has filed a lawsuit claiming other officers harassed her after she arrested an off-duty Miami police officer going 120 miles per hour in his police cruiser on Florida's Turnpike.

Trooper Donna Watts filed the suit in federal court seeking more than $1 million in damages.

Watts says officers from numerous Florida police agencies illegally accessed personal information such as her home address, birth date and Social Security number.

The suit says the officers made threatening calls to her home, parked in her driveway, staged numerous pranks and followed her car for no apparent reason.

Watts says the harassment started in October 2011 after she arrested off-duty Miami Police Officer Fausto Lopez.

Lopez was fired earlier this year after an internal investigation found that he showed a pattern of reckless speeding.

The suit names the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and nearly individual 100 officers. It also names a number of police agencies that Watts says allowed officers to access her personal information including the Broward Sheriff's Office, the Lauderhill and Hollywood Police Departments, the Orange and Seminole County Sheriff’s Offices and the Orlando Police Department.