Philadelphia Jury Awards $10 Million to Man Jailed More Than Three Years on False Police Charges
Won by Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig.
A Philadelphia civil jury awarded Khanefah Boozer $10 million after finding that Officer Ryan Waltman maliciously prosecuted him for a shooting Boozer did not commit, leaving him imprisoned for more than three years.
What happened
On the night of January 22, 2011, Khanefah Boozer was the designated driver for a group of friends returning from a bar in Germantown. As the group approached a friend's house, one of the passengers in a lead car, Bruno Rosales, fired a handgun into the air. Boozer, who had no weapon and played no part in the shooting, scolded Rosales and drove away.
Officer Ryan Waltman stopped Boozer and accused him of being the one who had fired at police. No gun was ever recovered. Investigators found no shell casings, no ballistic evidence, and no corroborating witnesses placing a weapon in Boozer's hands. Boozer told officers at the scene that Rosales had fired the shots and provided his name, but police never followed up. Boozer was charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, violations of the Uniform Firearms Act, and related offenses.
Unable to pay 10 percent of a $500,000 bail, Boozer remained in custody from January 2011 through the fall of 2014, roughly three years and eight months. During that time, his mother and sister both died. When his criminal case finally went to trial, Rosales took the stand and confirmed that he had fired the gun. The jury acquitted Boozer of every charge on September 18, 2014.
Boozer then filed a civil lawsuit against Waltman. Robert J. Levant, of counsel at Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig, represented him at trial. The civil jury found Waltman liable for malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, and civil conspiracy, concluding that Waltman had 'maliciously caused a criminal proceeding to be commenced and continued against Boozer.' On May 10, 2018, the jury returned a verdict of $5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.
The $10 million total was described at the time as the largest civil verdict against a single Philadelphia police officer in the city's history. The City of Philadelphia announced it was reviewing the verdict and considering an appeal. Under Pennsylvania law, municipalities are not required to pay punitive damage awards, meaning the punitive portion faced a separate legal hurdle to collection. Waltman remained employed by the Philadelphia Police Department, earning approximately $75,000 in annual salary, at the time the verdict was entered.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Philadelphia Inquirer: Philly jury awards $10 million in wrongful arrest case (May 2018)·Archived copy
- 2.WHYY: Jury awards $10M to Philly man jailed for three years on false charge of firing at cops (May 2018)·Archived copy
- 3.NBC Philadelphia: $10 Million Civil Verdict Against Philadelphia Police Officer (May 2018)·Archived copy
- 4.Prison Legal News: $10 Million Award for Wrongly Jailed Philadelphia Man (Feb 2019)·Archived copy
- 5.6abc Philadelphia: Jury awards $10M to Philly man over wrongful arrest (May 2018)·Archived copy
More proven verdicts from Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig
All Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig proven verdicts →A $160 million settlement, the largest pre-verdict settlement in Pennsylvania court history, resolved claims against U-Haul after an overfilled propane tank exploded at a North Philadelphia food truck, killing a mother and her teenage daughter and severely burning three others.
A Philadelphia jury found Pottstown Memorial Medical Center liable for a newborn's severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy after the hospital's outdated, unmaintained ultrasound equipment led a physician to incorrectly declare the baby dead, delaying an emergency cesarean section by 81 minutes.
Feldman Shepherd secured a combined $50 million settlement from IKEA on behalf of three families whose toddler sons were fatally crushed by MALM dressers, a result that preceded a nationwide recall of approximately 29 million chests and dressers.
Alan Feldman of Feldman Shepherd secured a $46 million settlement against IKEA on behalf of the family of a 2-year-old boy crushed by a MALM dresser in California, reported at the time as the largest child wrongful-death settlement in U.S. history.
Related civil rights verdicts
An Essex County jury awarded $165.97 million against the State of New Jersey and its Division of Youth and Family Services for failing to remove an infant from his home despite his grandmother's abuse report, a verdict reported as the largest in state personal injury history. The trial judge cut it to $102.6 million on remittitur, and in April 2017 the Appellate Division reversed the judgment entirely on qualified immunity grounds under the Tort Claims Act. The family collected nothing from the State.
On December 14, 2019 Emily Gaines, an 18-year-old Moore High School senior, was driving to take the ACT when Sgt. Kyle Lloyd of the Moore Police Department, off duty and rushing a key to another officer's patrol car for a department event, hit her broadside at 95 to 100 mph in a 50 zone. She died at the scene. On April 1, 2026 a federal jury returned $126,000,000. The court entered $90,000,000 against Lloyd, who is in prison, and cut the $36,000,000 against the City to $125,000 under Oklahoma's Governmental Tort Claims Act.
The Popham Law Firm secured a $57 million settlement on behalf of more than 1,700 Sprint employees who alleged the company's automated performance system unlawfully targeted workers over 40 during a series of mass layoffs, at the time the largest ADEA class settlement in the District of Kansas.
Ben Crump, with Connecticut co-counsel Louis Rubano and R.J. Weber, secured a $45 million settlement from the City of New Haven for Richard "Randy" Cox, who was left paralyzed from the chest down after being thrown headfirst into the wall of a police transport van while handcuffed. At announcement it was described as the largest settlement ever reached in a U.S. police-misconduct case, surpassing the George Floyd settlement.