Penny McCarthy froze in her front yard as a van full of armed US marshals in bullet-proof vests pulled up in her front yard, screaming and swearing at her. She had no idea what was going on.
“Police! Don’t move, hands up,” one of the officers shouted, pointing his assault weapon at her. At one point they told the 66-year-old that if she turned around again she would be Tasered.
“Do you want to confirm who I am?” McCarthy asked the officers, per bodyworn footage later released by the US Marshal Service (USMS) and obtained by ABC15. “Put your hands behind your back, we’ll discuss this later,” came the reply.
The shocking incident, which took place in Arizona in March 2023 was, ultimately, a case of mistaken identity.
Police had been seeking a totally different woman – 70-year-old Carole Anne Rozak – who was wanted on an outstanding parole violation warrant from 1999 out of Oklahoma.
Rozak served prison time for all non-violent crimes. But according to federal court records also obtained by ABC15, she failed to report to any federal probation officer after she was released from federal custody in Harris County, Texas.
In the police footage McCarthy is heard asking the marshals multiple times if they know who she is but is consistently ignored. It was not until she was in handcuffs that officers finally told.
“Carole Rozak,” she is told, with McCarthy replying: “That’s not who I am.”
Despite McCarthy offering to provide proof that she was not Rozak, she was arrested and put in the back of the police van.
It later emerged in court hearings that federal agents had based the false identification on Facebook postings and “some aliases” that they had obtained. An Arizona federal judge dismissed the case against McCarthy, but not before she had spent time in prison over the mix-up.
According to the Deputy US Marshal Service in Oklahoma, a “glitch” caused them to believe that McCarthy’s digital fingerprints matched Rozak’s. This was later debunked.
A statement put out by the service read: “USMS continues to conduct a thorough review of actions taken by deputy US marshals regarding the fugitive investigation of Caroline Anne Rozak and subsequent mistaken arrest of Penny McCarthy.”
The grandmother is still affected by the incident.
“I am so fricking disappointed in my government, it’s not funny,” Ms McCarthy told ABC15, following the release of the bodycam footage.
“They did nothing but treat me like crap and lie to me,” she added. “Ths US marshals are above the law, that’s what this says to me.”
