Copyright Mechanicsburg Patriot News
A false positive test misidentifying baking soda as a mixture of fentanyl and horse tranquilizer is what landed a Pennsylvania man in a notorious New York prison for two weeks, the state Attorney General’s Office wrote in recent filings in federal court. Amicar Maldonado Montengudo spent two weeks in Rikers Island Jail in October 2023 after being arrested on a drug warrant supported by the false positive test, Montengudo said in a lawsuit filed against two state troopers. Montengudo, a York resident, is bringing false imprisonment, false arrest, and malicious prosecution claims against troopers Philip Pronick and David Long who tested the substance. He argued the state troopers violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and should have spoken up when he was arrested on the bunk charges stemming from a July 2023 traffic stop on I-83 north in Dauphin County. But in its answer to Montengudo’s complaint, the civil division of the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office — which is defending the state troopers in the lawsuit — argued the troopers had no knowledge of the false positive until after Montengudo was released from jail. Montengudo was arrested October 10 as he was trying to leave the country and police only found out the substance was not drugs on November 29. Pronick informally told Montengudo’s criminal defense lawyer and prosecutors the substance was baking soda before Montengudo’s scheduled probable cause hearing Dec. 13, and prosecutors withdrew charges. In an exhibit supplementing its answer to the complaint, state police spelled out a narrative of the traffic stop leading to the acquisition of the baking soda: On July 31, 2023 at around 12:30 p.m., Pronick pulled over a Silver Honda Accord on I-83 north in Dauphin County for having a dark window tint and because the registered driver’s address was in a “high crime area” of York City. The car was being driven by Caonabo Rivas-Martes, and the passenger was Montengudo, but the car belonged to Mongengudo’s girlfriend. They told state police they went to PennDOT to register a four-wheeler, but changed stories about their travel plans multiple times. When Pronick asked if they had anything illegal in the car, Montengudo told him “I am not that kind of people. I am a family guy.” “I took these statements as an attempt to gain empathy from me,” Pronick wrote in his report. When Montengudo allowed Pronick to search the vehicle, Pronick found a green grocery bag carrying a container of watermelon and a pill bottle labeled with Montengudo’s girlfriend’s name. Pronick found a white powder inside the pill bottle which he said looked like a controlled substance, but Montengudo said it was baking soda for his upset stomach. When Pronick questioned Montengudo on the substance, Montengudo repeated it was baking soda and told the trooper to check it. He laughed and told Pronick to try it. Instead, Pronick seized the pill bottle and Montengudo begged him to not take it. “I found this to be odd behavior if it had only contained baking soda,” he said. On Aug. 3, Pronick called Montengudo and asked him to come to the PSP Harrisburg barracks to speak. “He related that I could keep the baking powder and dispose of it as his stomach is no longer upset,” Montengudo told Pronick before hanging up the phone. In his report, Pronick said he seized a “large amount of narcotics.” It was 30 grams of the powdery substance later revealed to be baking soda.
