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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON Post & Courier
BEAUFORT — The weather on July 6, 2019, was typically steamy, with the temperature reaching nearly 90 degrees. By 9 p.m., it was still hot and sticky.
Around that time, two parties of boaters were returning to the Sands Beach boat landing in Port Royal intent on getting their boats out of the water. An interaction on the dock between the parties would lead to an altercation. The altercation led, in a convoluted way, to an arrest, allegations of false arrest and a lawsuit.
Almost five years later, the allegations brought by Paul and Stephanie Coffman were argued in front of a jury and Judge H. Steven DeBerry IV in a Beaufort County courtroom.
Their 2021 lawsuit argues that the town of Port Royal and four members of its police department — Chief Alan Beach, Maj. Ron Wekenmaan, Capt. John Griffith and Investigator Kimberly Carter — were liable for damages resulting from the arrest and overnight detention of Paul Coffman, who was at the time a 73-year-old Port Royal resident.
In their filing, the Coffmans assert, among other things, that the defendants “instituted and continued the proceedings based on malice” and they knew or should have known that there was no probable cause for the arrest. As a result of his arrest and detention, Paul Coffman alleges that he suffered mental anguish, loss of freedom, anxiety and distress, among other consequences.
After four days of testimony, the defense of the case rested June 20, and DeBerry issued a directed verdict releasing Beach, Wekenmaan and Griffith from the case. The judge, who is based in Florence, stated that the plaintiff’s attorneys had failed to provide evidence supporting their assertions as they apply to the three Port Royal police officers.
But the jury was tasked with determining whether the town and/or Carter are liable for damages. The central matter is whether police had sufficiently established probable cause to justify Paul Coffman’s arrest.
After nearly four hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict late in the afternoon of June 21.
An altercation
After a full day on the water, Joshua Smith approached the Sands Beach boat landing with loud music blaring from his boat, Bad Company.
Brittany Smith — an off-duty deputy sheriff with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office and wife of Joshua Smith — and her friend Jessica Bradley got off the boat at the dock. Joshua Smith waited in the boat for another friend, Hunter Lewis, to back a truck down the ramp.
Also coming off the water that night in their own boat were Paul Coffman, his wife Stephanie Coffman and their friend Aaron Abercrombie.
Lewis was having difficulty backing the truck and trailer down the ramp, leaving the Coffmans unable to get their boat out of the water. Paul Coffman, according to testimony, tied his boat to the dock and walked to the top of the ramp, where he encountered Brittany Smith and Bradley.
After making some small talk, Paul Coffman asked Brittany Smith if it was her husband playing the loud music. She said it was. Paul Coffman allegedly responded, saying he was “nine-tenths” of the way to wanting to beat up Joshua Smith, who was several decades younger and substantially larger than Coffman.
He proceeded to his car and, according to testimony, retrieved a fish bat, similar to a miniature baseball bat. He then went back down the ramp to his boat.
Curious as to what Paul Coffman had retrieved from his car, Brittany Smith and Bradley walked down to his location and confronted him. The confrontation got loud as tempers flared, drawing the attention of Joshua Smith. He joined the interaction and, in due course, allegedly took the fish bat from Paul Coffman and threw him to the ground.
Port Royal police were called. Neither man wanted to press charges. Without a clear idea of who initiated the altercation, all parties went their separate ways. Paul Coffman was offered medical assistance, which he refused.
While Joshua Smith was named as a defendant in the original filing, he was later dropped from the case. Brittany Smith is not a defendant, nor is Bradley or Lewis.
A reinvestigation
According to the filing, Paul Coffman called the Port Royal Police Department three days later to discuss the incident. He continued to press the matter with the department over the next several days.
Griffith told him that the incident had been properly handled and that “there was not enough probable cause to charge any of the individuals involved.”
Paul Coffman continued to push for an investigation. On July 29, Wekenmann ordered the investigation be reopened. The case was assigned to Carter, and she subsequently sought an arrest warrant for Paul Coffman.
Testimony offered by two former members of the Port Royal police said that reopening an investigation was exceedingly rare. One of those former officers, Ryan Steady, testified that he argued at the time that there was insufficient probable cause to justify a warrant. He was overruled. The other, Joab Dowling, testified that he would not have sought a warrant without a cooperating victim. The victim in the case, Joshua Smith, was still not interested in pressing charges.
Carter defended her actions in a videotaped deposition, citing Coffman’s verbal threat and retrieval of a weapon, the fish bat, elements of a “totality of evidence” justifying the arrest warrant.
With the arrest warrant signed by a judge, Carter contacted Paul Coffman to arrange his surrender, telling him he simply needed to sign some forms and he’d be released with a trial date. When he appeared at the police department the next morning with attorney Gil Bell, he was informed that he would be arrested and detained until a bond hearing scheduled for the following morning.
“We walked into an ambush,” Bell testified.
Paul Coffman was charged with assault and battery, third degree.
For reasons that were not explained, his case was assigned to special prosecutor Roberts “Tabor” Vaux Jr. He dismissed the charges in early 2020.
The verdict is in
A jury of eight women and four men entered Courtroom 1 after a four-hour deliberation that included two questions sent to the judge for clarification.
The verdict found Carter liable for damages related to false arrest, known formally as unreasonable seizure, and malicious prosecution. The Coffmans were award $60,000 for actual damages and $40,000 for punitive damages.
Further, the Town of Port Royal was found liable for negligence and malicious prosecution, and the jury awarded the Coffmans $250,000.
“We got the resolution we were hoping for, that they would send a message to Port Royal. That’s what they did,” Jeremiah Shellenberg, attorney for the Coffmans, told The Post and Courier after the verdict was announced.
