A 61-year-old man is suing Macy’s and the parent company of Sunglass Hut over the stores’ alleged use of a facial recognition system that misidentified him as the culprit behind an armed robbery and led to his wrongful arrest. While in jail, he was beaten and raped, according to his suit.
Harvey Eugene Murphy Jr was accused and arrested on charges of robbing a Houston-area Sunglass Hut of thousands of dollars of merchandise in January 2022, though his attorneys say he was living in California at the time of the robbery. He was arrested on 20 October 2023, according to his lawyers.
According to Murphy’s lawsuit, an employee of EssilorLuxottica, Sunglass Hut’s parent company, worked with its retail partner Macy’s and used facial recognition software to identify Murphy as the robber. The image that was put through the facial recognition system came from low-quality cameras, according to the lawsuit. While Houston police department was investigating the armed robbery, the EssilorLuxottica employee called police to say they could stop the investigation because the employee had identified one of two robbers with the technology. The employee also said the system had pointed to Murphy as committing two other robberies, according to the lawsuit.
When Murphy returned to Texas from California, he went to the department of motor vehicles (DMV) to renew his license. Within minutes of identifying himself to a DMV clerk, Murphy told the Guardian he was approached by a police officer who notified him there was a warrant out for his arrest for an aggravated robbery. Murphy said he was not told any details about his supposed crime except for the date the robbery occurred. He realized he was in Sacramento, California, at the time of the robbery – more than a thousand miles away.
“I almost thought it was a joke,” Murphy said.
Still, he was arrested and taken to the local county jail, where he was held for 10 days before being transferred to and processed in Harris county jail.
After a few days at Harris county, his alibi was confirmed by both his court-appointed defense attorney and the prosecutor, and the charges against him were ultimately dropped, according to the lawsuit.
Murphy was never convicted of a crime. Nonetheless, he says his detainment left him with deep scars. He was brutally beaten and gang-raped by three other men in the jail hours before he was released, he alleges. They threatened to kill him if he tried to report them to the jail staff, according to Murphy. After the alleged attack, Murphy remained in the same cell as them until he was released.
“That was kind of terrifying,” Murphy said. “Your anxiety is up so high, you’re still shaking the entire time. And I just got up on my bunk and just faced the wall and was just praying that something would come through and get me out of that tank.”
“The attack left him with permanent injuries that he has to live with every day of his life,” the lawsuit reads. “All of this happened to Murphy because the Defendants relied on facial recognition technology that is known to be error prone and faulty.”
Murphy did not realize facial recognition technology may have been used as evidence against him until two weeks ago, when he began working with his attorney, Daniel Dutko.
Dutko said he discovered from police documents that the Sunglass Hut worker shared camera footage with Macy’s, which employees from the department store chain used to identify Murphy. After that, Macy’s and Sunglass Hut contacted the police together, according to Dutko. Though Macy’s has retail partnerships with the eyewear brand in several locations, Macy’s had no connection to this robbery as the Sunglass Hut in question is a standalone location, he said.
“We feel very comfortable saying facial recognition software is the only possible explanation, and it’s the only reason why [Sunglass Hut] would go to Macy’s to try to identify him,” Dutko said.
Hellbound and Down 