The 31-year-old fashion influencer from Queens, who currently has 865,000 followers on Instagram, filed a complaint on March 9 with the Manhattan Supreme Court against the NYPD, the city, and a police detective, according to a copy of the lawsuit that her lawyer, Mark Shirian, shared with Newsweek on Saturday without adding any comments or further information.
The lawsuit was filed “for defamation per se, libel, slander, intentional infliction of emotional distress” and negligence.
“Ms. Lopez was extremely upset and continues to be upset by the presence of her picture on the Wanted Sign,” her lawyer said in the filing. “This incident has damaged Ms. Lopez’[s] personal reputation in her neighborhood and has damaged her professional reputation in her employment.”
Lopez first found out on August 16 that her picture was used on the poster for a sex worker accused of theft, according to the court filing. However, it was meant to target another woman who police said was wanted over grand larceny for allegedly stealing a $13,000 Rolex and a Chase credit card from her client’s roommate. The actual “wanted” woman also had a sleeve tattoo, which Lopez doesn’t have.
“Wanted for Grand Larceny. Perpetrator—probable cause to arrest,” the poster read. The NYPD said that the theft happened on August 3 in Manhattan, but Lopez said she was in Queens that day.
According to the New York Post, the photo of Lopez that was used was taken at a birthday party around a month or two before the incident, in which she can be seen wearing a low-cut tube top, multi-colored leggings, and high heels.
Her boyfriend was the first to flag the poster after he received a text from his friend about it. Several other people also texted Lopez about the photo, which started to circulate online. “I thought it was something fake. I really couldn’t believe the police would put me on a wanted poster,” Lopez told the Post.
The lawsuit alleged that when her and her boyfriend first saw the “wanted” poster, “they both thought that it was photo-shopped and were both shocked.” Lopez reposted the flyer on her personal Instagram page to “clear up her innocence and the fact that the wanted poster should not have been directed at her.”
She also called police detective Kevin Dwyer of the East Village’s 9th Precinct on August 16 to inquire about her photo being wrongly used.
“Detective Dwyer reiterated that they conducted an investigation and found a surveillance video from the building and that although the female perpetrator did look similar to plaintiff Eva Lopez, the female perpetrator had a sleeve tattoo,” the lawsuit read.
The lawsuit alleged that Dwyer “knew it was an issue before she called” when he told her that the poster had already been removed from the department’s Facebook page among other online platforms. However, Lopez said it circulated online despite the NYPD’s efforts to take it down.
“It was already spread around on social media,” Lopez told the Post. “It was still being talked about making me look like a thief and a prostitute. On Facebook, the [wanted poster] got shared over thousands of times—10,000, 20,000 times. Then on Instagram a lot of blog sites that have millions of followers, they posted it as well.”
Dwyer told Lopez that the victims showed pictures of her to the police, according to the lawsuit. Lopez reaffirmed her innocence in the court filing that claimed she “had absolutely nothing to do with any grand larceny.”
“The NYPD should commit to more thorough investigations before haphazardly accusing and identifying innocent people of fantastic lies and brazen crimes,” her lawyer said, according to the Post, who also suspects that the sex worker might have been using Lopez’s pictures on social media.
“This incident has caused and continues to cause Ms. Lopez severe mental anguish and emotional distress. Ms. Lopez was unable to sleep for weeks after the incident,” Shirian said in the lawsuit.
The NYPD declined to comment on the situation when contacted by Newsweek citing pending litigation.
Newsweek contacted Eva Lopez for comment and will update the story once a response is received.
The story has been updated to include additional information about the lawsuit.
