We are so proud of our dear client Michelle Hadley, who recently told her story in a new Netflix documentary, Toxic Love Story. Michelle spent 88 days in jail after being framed for stalking and sending men to her ex-fiancé Ian Diaz’s home to attack his new wife, Angela, via Craigslist ads.

When Michelle first came to us, we began building the civil case against the City of Anaheim, Angela Diaz, and Ian Diaz. At that point in November 2018, only Angela had been arrested for her role in framing Michelle.

One thing the documentary gets wrong is that the discovery that Ian’s culpability was a plot twist. Nope. Michelle knew that all along.  But nobody listened to her. In our civil case, though, we (along with our brilliant co-counsel, Maggie McLetchie) poured through transcripts from Angela’s criminal court case, all of the emails between Angela/Ian and Anaheim PD, the Craigslist posts, the IP addresses, and bodycam footage. It was crystal clear what was actually happening. This wasn’t some elaborate, twisted impersonation scheme – it was an obvious fabrication of evidence that only confirmed what Michelle had been saying for years.

Michelle had gone to Anaheim PD several times to report the harassment and stalking she was dealing with after breaking up with Ian. When police showed up at her door, she thought they were there to helpfully respond to her reports against Ian. Instead, they were there to arrest her, based on the evidence Ian and Angela had falsified.

Some of the fabricated evidence was shockingly obvious. For example, when Ian/Angela would forward emails from “Lilith Is Truth” (the email they were using to impersonate Michelle), there would sometimes be multiple names in the “From” line. And there was evidence that the Craigslist ads were connected to Ian’s email address.

Anaheim PD had this evidence the entire time BEFORE they arrested Michelle.

Our lawsuit against Anaheim PD, which settled in 2021, details the incompetence of law enforcement that led to Michelle’s wrongful arrest.

Michelle’s federal civil case was damn groundbreaking.

For several reasons:

  • Michelle’s federal civil case overcame the motions for summary judgment brought by Ian and Anaheim. It created powerful new grounds in 1983 civil rights cases establishing that the lack of policy and procedures for evaluating digital evidence is a civil rights violation.
  • It determined that the cops were not entitled to qualified immunity because probable cause for the arrests was so disputed. Specifically, the Anaheim PD officers “relied exclusively on unverified information.” This included:
    • Printouts or forwards of emails and Craigslist advertisements and statements from Angela
    • No VPN applications found on Michelle’s phone even though VPNs were used in the evidence
    • Failure to look at all but one security camera footage where Angela’s alleged assault occurred
    • Failure to verify that Michelle sent an email to Angela less than an hour from her release from jail
  • It overcame the “Smiddy Presumption.” There’s a presumption that prosecutors made an independent assessment of evidence. But we showed that the prosecutors were actually embedded into the Anaheim Police Department. And the prosecutors basically adopted the incompetence of the APD.
  • It shattered the strong civil immunity for statements civilians make to cops, recognizing that statements made to encourage a person’s arrest based on fabricated evidence and false police reports can amount to wrongful prosecution by a civilian.

The decision also acknowledged that law enforcement has a duty to “independently investigate the basis of the witness’ knowledge.” The judge said that duty is especially crucial “where, as here, the ‘victim’ or ‘witness’ is attempting to frame the accused ‘perpetrator.’” The court said Michelle offered “a staggering quantity of evidence” disregarded by the Defendant Officers to show that her first arrest on was not supported by probable cause.

This evidence included:

  • Warrant returns linking a June 11, 2016 rape fantasy advertisement to Diaz’s email account
  • Warrant returns for the lilithistruth outlook email account which was the source of the harassing and threatening emails purportedly sent by Michelle. But 9 of those emails were sent from an IP address known to the lead detective as Ian Diaz’s.
  • Anaheim PD knew Michelle had filed a complaint against Ian with the Dept of Justice
  • Anaheim PD knew that that Michelle had reported that she believed Ian and/or Angela were fabricating evidence to make it appear she was violating a TRO
  • The lead Anaheim detective knew Michelle had filed reports about Ian Diaz with her school and workplace
  • The lead Anaheim detective knew that Michelle had reported to Microsoft and Craigslist that her email address was being used fraudulently.
  • The lead Anaheim detective saw on Michelle’s phone that she had received an email from Craigslist requesting verification of a fraudulent ad and saw that she’d not verified it, yet this same detective testified that her receiving these emails was a source of probable cause.
  • The lead Anaheim detective observed that Michelle did not have email accounts (lilithistruth@outlook.com and ianrdiaz@outlook.com) that were connected to the Craigslist ads.

The court also found that Michelle showed a host of exculpatory evidence demonstrating that her second arrest was also without probable cause:

  • The lead detective sent control emails to the lilithistruth@outlook.com email address. He received a response but it didn’t come from any of Michelle’s devices.
  • After Michelle’s first arrest, Anaheim PD retained Michelle’s devices. Seventy-five minutes after Michelle posted bail, Angela reported receiving more threatening emails. Yet, Anaheim PD knew Michelle was still in the car with her parents at that time and had no access to devices.

More than a Toxic Love Story: A Cop Corruption Case

To our surprise, Toxic Love Story made Anaheim Police Department appear like a victim. But from our perspective, they betrayed and injured Michelle even worse than Ian and Angela. Had these officers exercised minimum competence, Angela and Ian’s crappy job at framing Michelle would have been sniffed out. This was a case about cop corruption.  (Which is why we were so surprised by Netflix’s fictional storyline about the FBI/DOJ “discovering” Ian’s role in 2021.)

Our favorite part of the documentary was the end when Michelle celebrates Lilith and disobedient women everywhere. She rescued herself from a toxic, abusive relationship, and then tirelessly advocated for her own innocence after being framed and put through hell. Then she went on to file a civil lawsuit, which would set precedent for others, and has continued to tell her story. This is just the beginning for her!

Read more about the 2021 settlement (including the fifth amended complaint and motion for summary judgment decision) here.