A federal appeals court this week rejected an Altoona man's request for a new judge to hear his civil rights lawsuit against Pennsylvania state police.
Kevin P. Flood, 55, was arrested in 2004 and later was convicted and jailed for leading a marijuana ring. Police seized more than 530 pounds of marijuana from Flood's Logan Township home on Easter morning 2004.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused to overturn U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson's February order in which Gibson said he would not compel the defendants in the case to produce audiotapes of the interrogation a second time.
Flood was given copies of the tapes, but he claims that someone tampered with them.
In his lawsuit, Flood claimed that his constitutional rights were violated by certain state troopers who participated in his arrest and interrogation. He also claimed that the state police used an informant to plant drugs at his house and to administer drugs to him in order to weaken him during interrogation.
Flood said that the state police illegally entered his home, and used improper and excessive interrogation techniques on him at the state police barracks at Hollidaysburg.
Flood is currently jailed at the Federal Correctional Institution at Fort Dix, N.J.
