Woman was told 'it happens' after 'mistaken identity' screwup jailed her over Christmas and ruined cruise to celebrate brother's cancer survival: Lawsuit

A Texas woman with three grown children was stunned on Christmas Eve in 2022 when law enforcement accused her of being wanted for child endangerment as she disembarked from a Royal Caribbean cruise in Florida that was meant to celebrate her brother beating cancer for the second time. As it turns out, Jennifer Heath Box’s lawsuit against Broward County said that she was the victim of “mistaken identity” because deputies ignored “obvious” discrepancies between her information and the woman — with a similar name and also from Texas — who was actually the subject of the warrant.

Jennifer Heath Box, 50, represented by the Institute for Justice, filed suit Thursday in Florida against the Broward County, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, deputies Peter Peraza and Monica Jean, and two corrections employees, claiming that she was forced to stay in jail for three days over Christmas, that guards subjected her to a “body cavity” search and “watched” her while she showered, and that she missed a chance to see her son before he left for his “three-year tour with the Marines” — only to be told “it happens” when she was let go.

Video footage of the initial encounter with law enforcement showed Heath Box confused about authorities’ child endangerment rationale for stopping her as she disembarked from the cruise. Unbeknownst to her, while she was on the cruise, investigators believed that she was a Harris County, Texas, woman with a warrant and were waiting for her. After her husband Kyle Box could be heard saying “I think you have the wrong person,” both of the sued deputies allegedly said they had to “verify” that.

But instead of verifying whether they had the right person, authorities allegedly ignored “at least 10 discrepancies,” starting with the facts she — Jennifer Heath Box — had a different name from the other woman, Jennifer Delcarmen Heath, and had a different birthday.

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“Officers with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office arrested Jennifer Heath Box on someone else’s warrant because they overlooked overwhelming evidence that they had the wrong person. There were over a dozen reasons why BSO officers should have realized that Jennifer wasn’t wanted for child endangerment in Harris County, Texas,” the suit said. “But they ignored each one and forced Jennifer to spend three days in jail, away from her family over Christmas.”

“Jennifer has never been in trouble with the law. Her three kids are all grown and out of the house—she had no minor children to endanger when Harris County issued a warrant for Jennifer Delcarmen Heath,” court documents continued. “It should have been obvious that Jennifer Heath Box was not subject to the warrant: Jennifer and the suspect had different maiden names, different married names, and different birthdates; Jennifer was nearly twice the suspect’s age and five inches taller; they had different color hair, different color eyes, and different skin tones; they had different tattoos; they lived in different counties; they had different driver’s license numbers, different social security numbers, and different FBI numbers.”

That the plaintiff had no minor children as she was accused of endangering a child dependent only shows “there’s really no excuse” for the “mistaken identity” arrest, the suit added.

According to the plaintiff, things didn’t get much better even when her brother Mark was able to demonstrate days later that Houston cops had “accidentally attached Jennifer’s DMV photo to the suspect’s warrant[.]”

“The decision to continue detaining Jennifer anyway was unreasonable, in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” the complaint said.

In comment about the ordeal, Heath Box said she’d never experienced anything like this before as she has no criminal record.

“It was a really scary and confusing experience, because I’ve never had run-ins with law enforcement and I have no criminal record,” she said . “I couldn’t believe that I could be stopped, arrested, and jailed, just because my name was similar to someone they were looking for.”

WPLG has reported that an internal affairs probe found no misconduct on the part of Peraza.

Read the lawsuit here .

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