Preacher's wife sues Miami cops for strip searching her after mistaking her for a drug trafficker: report

Miami-Dade police are being sued by a Sarasota woman after they allegedly mistook her for an international drug dealer and paraded her through Miami International Airport in handcuffs before subjecting her to a strip search and holding her in jail.

"In a lawsuit filed in county court, Raphaela Lucarelli, a longtime spa owner and wife of Florida evangelical preacher Daniel Adams, says a mundane misunderstanding over personal medication found in her luggage escalated into a false arrest on drug trafficking charges at the hands of the Miami-Dade Police Department," the Miami New Timesreported. "Lucarelli wants damages for false imprisonment and violations of her constitutional rights in connection with the May 25 airport incident."

Lucarelli says U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detained at 6:00 a.m. when she returned to Florida after visiting family in Brazil. They reportedly brought her into a back room after finding her prescribed medication.

"Miami-Dade Police Department detectives started trickling in, and the situation deteriorated from there. Lucarelli, who has a Brazilian background, claims one detective "called [her] a Mexican" and tried to pressure her into confessing to his illusory narrative that she was trafficking drugs," the weekly reported. "Despite Lucarelli explaining, over and over again, that she could provide the prescription documents and put police in contact with her doctor, the Miami-Dade detectives placed her in handcuffs, the lawsuit alleges. They escorted her through Miami International Airport while she was in tears."

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The lawsuit reportedly described the invasive strip search Lucarelli received.

"Lucarelli claims that while in custody, she was denied food and medication, with one officer telling her, 'This is not a hotel.' She says she did not receive food at the jail until 8 p.m. that night, 14 hours after her arrival at Miami International Airport (MIA)," the weekly reported."

She was reportedly not released until 1 a.m. the next morning.

The drug charges against Lucarelli were dismissed.

Lucarelli's attorney, Jeremy Friedman, said the harm to his client is ongoing as she was placed on Department of Homeland Security watch list because of the incident and he has been unable to get her name removed.

"It's a real problem," he explained. "Anytime she travels internationally, she's getting questioned about whether she's an alleged drug trafficker. It's as if one government agency doesn't have the ability to cross-reference state records to show that this case was dismissed... that it was a mistake."

Read the full report.