(Pawtucket, RI) -- A federal lawsuit is being filed over a wrongful arrest in connection to a murder case in Pawtucket. Joao Monterio, a legal immigrant from Cape Verde, was arrested in 2019 for the 1988 murder of ten-year-old Christine Cole, but the case was dismissed. The lawsuit is going after the city, several of its police officers and a state forensic scientist. Among the claims it makes is that the defendants bypassed standard procedure by excluding representatives of the Rhode Island Attorney General's Office from the arrest process and by not seeking a grand jury indictment.
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