Questioned in fatal shooting of state trooper, innocent man files civil rights suit
An ambush shooting in which a Pennsylvania state trooper was killed and his partner seriously wounded outside the Blooming Grove barracks was also bad news for Jeffrey Hudak.
That’s because Hudak’s estranged wife had a relationship with the injured trooper. So he was initially considered a possible suspect, aggressively questioned and denied access to a lawyer, Hudak says in a federal civil rights suit filed Thursday in Scranton.
Attorney George Reihner filed the suit, which says “Pennsylvania State Police had absolutely no legal basis for the warrantless arrest” of Hudak, at his mother’s home, the Associated Press reports.
Although Hudak had nothing to do with the crime, “He was devastated by it. He was scared to death,” the Scranton attorney said of his client’s reaction to the alleged seven-hour interrogation the day after the shooting. “They were accusing him of murder and attempted murder. He described it as his heart beating out of his chest.”
Within days of the Sept. 12, 2014 attack, a Jeep found stuck in mud in the woods about 2 miles from the shooting scene led authorities to Eric Matthew Frein, a survivalist who had been living with his parents and is accused of having made statements about wanting to kill law enforcement officers. Then 31, Frein was charged with first-degree murder and other crimes and, after a 48-day manhunt that kept residents of Pike and Monroe counties on edge, taken into custody.
He is currently awaiting trial.
A spokeswoman said state police do not comment on litigation.
Related coverage:
CBS News: “Pennsylvania police identify suspect in deadly trooper ambush”
Allentown Morning Call (sub. req.): “One year after trooper shooting, Eric Frein still rattling nerves”
New York Times (reg. req.): “Answers Still Elusive After Arrest of Eric Frein in Killing of a State Trooper”
