A former Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) employee is suing police, the city of Brooklyn Park, Minn., and the company itself for allegedly implicating him in a pair of hoax bomb threats phoned in to Medtronic 2 years ago.
Chia Doua Yang alleges that a pair of supervisors fingered him as a suspect during the police investigation of the January 2013 bomb threats, leading to his arrest and detention for 2 nights, according to Yang’s complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for Minnesota.
The 1st threat was called in Jan. 21, 2013, to Medtronic’s customer service line, claiming that there were bombs in a Medtronic facility in Brooklyn Park, according to court documents. Police and firefighters checked the building and found nothing amiss, according to the lawsuit; the 1st call was later traced to a phone at the New River Medical Center in nearby Monticello. The 2nd call, made a day later from a different phone, made a similar false threat that there was a bomb at the Brooklyn Park plant. Police also investigated that call and found nothing, according to the complaint.
Police interviewed several Medtronic employees, including a human resources director who allegedly suggested Yang as a possible suspect for the hoax threats. The HR director and Yang’s direct supervisor were allegedly unable to identify Yang’s voice on the hoax call recordings, according to the suit, but the HR director "abruptly changed her mind and claimed that the caller must be plaintiff."
A long-term disability benefit employee at Medtronic also listened to the calls and allegedly identified the hoax caller as Yang, who had been let go due to a disability, according to the documents. Police arrested Yang Jan. 22, 2013, the same day as the 2nd hoax threat, but video of the 1st call from the Monticello health center revealed that Yang was not the caller, the lawsuit claims. Yang alleges that police had the video the next day but kept him there for another night, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint alleges 4 counts of civil rights violations for false arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution and seeks compensatory and punitive damages plus legal costs and a declaration that "the conduct of defendants police officers and city violated plaintiff’s rights under the 4th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution," according to the lawsuit.
A Medtronic spokeswoman told MassDevice.com via email this week that the company has received the complaint and believes it has "no merit."