Judge Orders Macy's to Quit Fining, Detaining Suspected Shoplifters in In-Store Jail

A judge has ordered Macy’s to immediately quit detaining and fining people suspected of shoplifting. A class action lawsuit claims that Macy’s detained at least two women suspected of shoplifting in holding cells for hours in the basement of the chain’s flagship in New York. Both women were forced to pay the store while in detention, a practice known as “civil recovery,” then turned over the NYPD and criminally charged.

The Guardian reports that a judge has ruled that Macy’s has no right to detain people after they’ve completed an internal investigation, and certainly no right to, in essence, force them to pay a ransom in order to leave. The class action against the company was brought by a woman named Cinthia Carolina Reyes Orellana, who says she was detained after carrying some clothes between floors. From DNAInfo:

Over the next three hours, she was searched, questioned, denied access to her phone to contact a lawyer or her family and ordered to admit her guilt by signing legal papers and forced to pay a $100 fine in cash before the security staff turned her over to the NYPD, according to the suit.

Macy’s then continued to harass her via mail, demanding additional fines even after the initial fee, in what her lawyer describes as a continuing policy by Macy’s to shake down minority customers.

That incident happened in 2014, after a series of racist incidents against customers of color embarrassed the store. That was the same year the company had to pay $650,000 to the New York State Attorney General to settle charges of unlawful racial discrimination and detention against non-white customers, who were detained despite not having stolen anything. Customers who spoke limited English said they were denied access to translators, forced to sign “trespass notices” or confessions they didn’t understand, and other pseudo-judicial practices that we do not, in this country, undertake in the basements of department stores.

And then, allegedly, it happened again: Samya Moftah told the Guardian she went to Macy’s last summer carrying a bag from JC Penney and a bag from a previous purchase at Macy’s. She planned to exchange some items for her kids. Instead, she says, she was pulled aside, taken to an office, had her phone and purse taken, and her body patted down, including her private areas. She alleges in an affidavit that one of the employees referred to her hijab, saying “See what’s under the scarf.”