He Was Pulled Over and Jailed for 7 Hours on Suspicion of DWI. In Reality, He'd Suffered a Stroke: Lawsuit

An Amazon worker needed a hospital — instead, he got a holding cell after cops allegedly mistook his stroke symptoms for drunkenness. Now he’s unable to work due to blindness, according to his civil complaint against a Missouri sheriff’s department. 

A Greene County Sheriff’s deputy pulled Paul Espinosa over as he was arriving at his Amazon Warehouse job in July 2022 in Republic, Mo., according to a complaint filed in federal court last month.

Deputy Kyle Winchell claimed Espinosa’s car was “weaving” and suspected he was driving while intoxicated, according to the complaint. Espinosa, 54, agreed to a Breathalyzer test, which yielded a reading of 0.000% — but according to Deputy Winchell, per the filing, he was “swaying” during field sobriety tests. 

The deputy arrested Espinosa on suspicion of DWI and took him to the Greene County Justice Center. En route, the filing alleges that according to Deputy Winchell’s report, Espinosa began sweating profusely despite the car’s air conditioning running throughout the ride. 

When they arrived at the jail, Espinosa’s “motor skills were declining,” the complaint states. His condition allegedly continued to deteriorate as he was booked and underwent a blood test. 

Two hours into his seven-and-a-half-hour ordeal, per the suit, deputies noted in their reports that Espinosa was “sweating, drooling, slumping, slurr[ing his] speech, swaying, staggering, [unable] to stand, [unable] to follow simple directions, [exhibiting] declining motor skills, [had]… constricted [pupils that were] non-reactive and… was not consistently awake, alert and oriented to person, place or time.”

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

A nurse was not called until two officers noticed he was slumped over in his holding cell, the complaint claims. When she asked whether he “knew what was going on,” Espinosa allegedly replied, “No.” 

The nurse, who is also named as a defendant, noted that the 54-year-old was “weak” and that his pupils were “sluggish and non-reactive.” 

Five hours later, an officer drove Espinosa to nearby Cox North Hospital for “unstable health conditions.” There, the complaint alleges the officer lied to hospital staff, saying that police found him in his car in the parking lot and “did not feel that he looked right and [noticed] that he was having trouble speaking when they tried to talk to him.”

Hospital staff diagnosed Espinosa with a cerebral stroke, and he was immediately transported to another hospital for more intensive care, attorneys wrote in the complaint. 

Although a blood sample was taken at the station, results were allegedly not returned to the Greene County Sheriff’s Office until two years later in February 2024, the complaint claims. The complaint claims the Missouri Highway Patrol Crime Lab determined that “[Espinosa’s] blood did not contain any controlled substance.” The former Amazon worker was never charged with a crime, per the lawsuit and publicly available Missouri criminal records.

The complaint claims that the 54-year-old went blind and “suffers from other impairments of the mind and body” and is unable to work as a result of the Greene County Sheriff’s deputies’ “intentional denial” of medical attention. Now, Espinosa and his wife are suing the sheriff’s office, alleging deliberate indifference and medical negligence. Their attorneys call for a jury trial and punitive damages. 

The Greene County Sheriff’s Department could not be immediately reached for comment at press time.