Authorities arrest Florida man who won $22.4M lawsuit after being shot by deputy

Authorities in South Florida arrested a 23-year-old man who won a $22.4 million civil lawsuit this year after a deputy shot and paralyzed him in 2013.

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Dontrell Stephens faces multiple drug-related charges, including selling heroin, marijuana and cocaine, according to Palm Beach County Jail records.

In September 2013, Stephens was shot by Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputy Adams Lin, who mistook Stephens' cellphone for a gun. The story made national news after a dashboard video went viral showing Lin shoot then 20-year-old Stephens as he ran away with his back to the deputy.

In February, a federal jury ruled that a deputy violated Stephens’ constitutional rights by shooting him, and the department should pay him more than $20 million to Stephens.

The sheriff's office shared Thursday's arrest on several of its social-media accounts saying, "If you sell drugs near a DAY CARE CENTER you are going to get #BUSTED." The sheriff's office did not return requests for comment Thursday evening.

Jack Scarola, Stephens’ attorney during the civil trial, said that since the sheriff’s office appealed the federal jury’s verdict, Stephens has not seen any of the money from the lawsuit and has no resources of his own.

“He continues to have an extremely difficult time,” Scarola said Thursday. “I can tell you he has been placed in a situation many people would consider intolerable.”

Stephens, who is paralyzed, has been relying “off the generosity of friends” to get by and on emergency room visits for medical needs.

Scarola said Stephens would not be in this position if the sheriff's office agreed to make a what's known as a "sovereign immunity" payment to "keep him alive" as the parties wait for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to make its decision in the case. Under Florida's laws, the most either the state or its agencies can be forced to pay from the lawsuit is $200,000.

“It’s absolutely unconscionable,” he said of the agency’s refusal to pay the $200,000.

Scarola previously told The Palm Beach Post he was "worried" about his client "living long enough to see one dollar of this verdict."

Scarola said he hadn’t spoken with Stephens since his arrest Thursday morning, but his office is making arrangements to represent him.

He said he didn’t know the circumstances surrounding Stephens’ arrest and isn’t suggesting any excuse for what Stephens is accused of, but said that if Stephens was compelled to sell drugs as alleged, “he was pushed to financial desperation by an unreasonable position of the sheriff’s office.”

Cox Media Group