He was followed by a man who walked past him and smiled, which Moroney took as a sign of interest in him. The man continued to smile and give non-verbal signals of interest. But when Moroney exposed himself a few moments later, the man rushed past him and out the door, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Moroney realized what had happened a few minutes later when he exited the restroom. The man identified himself as a Long Beach police officer and arrested Moroney for lewd conduct and indecent exposure.
The charges filed against him were later thrown out by Los Angeles County Superior Court Justice Halim Dhanidina, who ruled that the arrest was unconstitutional. In October, four years after his arrest, Moroney settled his civil case with the Long Beach Police Department outside of court for an undisclosed amount. At the heart of these cases is a practice that police departments throughout the state say has ended. Police departments are now feeling the repercussions of this unconstitutional practice in the form of civil lawsuits.
San Carlos-based civil rights attorney Bruce Nickerson, who represented Moroney, estimates that between 40, and 50, people in California, mainly gay men, have been arrested in illegitimate police decoy operations since , the year the California Supreme Court redefined lewd conduct to include a question of whether an action was highly offensive to an observer.
He arrived at that number after reading through the details of arrest reports involving decoy operations from Alameda County, Los Angeles County, San Diego County, Contra Costa County and other areas of the state. For decades, Nickerson has argued at various levels of California courts that police decoy operations discriminate against gay men.
Straight men and women are rarely if ever, targeted in undercover operations involving non-monetary sex, according to the civil rights attorney. The history of police sting operations targeting gay men in California goes back a hundred years.
