A Peter Pan bus driver who was accused of intentionally locking a passenger inside a luggage compartment of a bus last summer has filed a lawsuit against the Connecticut state troopers who arrested her, according to court filings.
The lawsuit filed in US District Court in Connecticut on Monday states that the bus driver, Wendy Alberty, spent several hours in jail, had to hire an attorney, and had to travel from her home in New Jersey to Connecticut to attend court hearings to answer to charges that were ultimately dropped. The complaint further alleges that Alberty was placed on administrative leave from her job for months and suffered loss of reputation because her mugshot was displayed in newspapers and on TV stations across the country following her arrest.
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The bizarre incident took place on Aug. 4, 2019 and was first reported to police by a 32-year-old New York woman who called 911 from the luggage compartment of the Peter Pan bus. Connecticut State Police pulled the bus over on Interstate 84, just south of the Massachusetts border. According to the police report, the woman, who is white, told police that she had been “purposely locked inside by a female driver while attempting to retrieve items from her bag.”
Alberty, who is Black, denied any wrongdoing. The lawsuit states that Alberty “fully cooperated” with police and “was adamant that she did not intentionally or knowingly lock Passenger in the luggage compartment.”
“Instead, without anything more than an unsupported and baseless allegation from [the] Passenger, a young white woman, and with the exculpatory statements of their own Trooper to the contrary, the Defendants placed Ms. Alberty under arrest,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit also sheds more light on how the woman ended up in the luggage compartment. According to the complaint, the bus was heading from New York to Boston and a had a brief scheduled stop at Union Station in Hartford, Conn., where another Peter Pan driver was going to take over driving and Alberty was to ride as a passenger for the remainder of the trip.
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“Prior to arriving in Hartford, Ms. Alberty informed the passengers on the bus that the stop in Hartford was only to change bus drivers and that it was not a rest stop, as to prevent passengers from exiting the bus and missing the departure to Boston,” the complaint states.
While the bus was stopped at Union Station, a woman asked Alberty if she could get something from her bag that was in the luggage compartment under the bus. “Ms. Alberty agreed, as she believed Passenger needed to retrieve a necessary personal feminine item,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit states that Alberty thought the woman had gotten back on the bus when she closed the the luggage compartment door. But it turned out that the woman was deep inside the compartment.
“Passenger was mistaken as to which side of the bus her luggage was stored and, in an attempt to get to the other side of the compartment without walking around the bus, entered the luggage compartment to gain access to the far side of the bus,” the lawsuit states. “The entire incident was captured on video by cameras at Union Station pointing directly at the bus and the incident.”
The lawsuit states that a Connecticut state trooper viewed the video footage and told the troopers who pulled the bus over that it did not appear that Alberty knew the woman was inside the luggage compartment when she closed the door.
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But the woman in the compartment told a different story to police. According to the lawsuit, she told police that Alberty had locked her in the luggage compartment on purpose and laughed while doing so, “despite the obvious video evidence to the contrary.”
Alberty was taken into custody and charged with reckless endangerment and unlawful restraint, as well as breaching the peace. All of the charges were later dropped.
According to the lawsuit, the woman who got stuck in the luggage compartment was not injured during the ordeal.
Globe reporter Katie Johnston, who happened to be traveling on the bus that day, said the woman may have been locked in the compartment “close to an hour or so” before she was freed.
“In retrospect, a few of us remembered hearing a banging sound that must have been her, and didn’t last long, but didn’t think anything of it at the time,” Johnston said.
“When the police pulled us over, they opened both luggage compartments — first the one toward the front, which she wasn’t in, then the rear one — and stared into them for what seemed like a few minutes, and then suddenly, the woman appeared,” Johnston said. “She had her laptop open, and a bunch of clothes pulled out of a big backpackers’ backpack, and a conga-like drum.”
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Johnston said the woman was wearing shorts, had a colorful scarf around her neck, and “didn’t seem to be in any distress.”
Emily Sweeney can be reached at emily.sweeney@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @emilysweeney.
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