Charges dropped against man Hertz claimed stole car
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(NewsNation) — Charges have been dropped against a man who spent two weeks in jail after Hertz filed a police report saying his rental car had been stolen.
Charles Doucette was arrested in February while on vacation even though Hertz had charged his credit card nearly $4,000.
Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr previously promised to “do right” by customers who’ve been treated unfairly, and admitted for the first time in April that some people were wrongfully arrested.
Francis Malofiy is the lawyer involved in the class-action lawsuit against Hertz and joined “Rush Hour” on Monday with Doucette, one of his clients.
Doucette said he still relives the experience to this day and will never rent from Hertz again.
“I’m hesitant on even renting cars in general now,” Doucette said. “With Hertz, there’s no way I can take that risk.”
Unsealed bankruptcy documents have suggested Hertz has filed thousands of police reports every year claiming cars were stolen. Scherr previously said the company has changed its practices to fix problems that have occurred when cars were reported stolen, but the transaction was actually improperly recorded in Hertz’s system.
“It’s not to fair to throw your customers in jail simply because you can’t find your car, and it’s not fair to shift the burden of your inventory control to police acting as a taxpayer-funded repo service,” Malofiy said. “A private corporation should have its own security personnel to do the job they’re supposed to do.”
Doucette, a health care consultant from New Hampshire, was arrested aboard a cruise ship in February when police accused him of stealing his Hertz rental car.
Doucette told NewsNation he rented a car for business in 2020 and extended the rental several times. But last March, Arizona police stopped him and told him Hertz filed a police report saying the car had been stolen.
Hertz charged his credit card nearly $4,000 for the full rental. But Doucette says Arizona prosecutors still brought it to a grand jury where they indicted him and issued a warrant for his arrest.
Now, the charges have been dropped.
“It’s clear there was no wrongdoing,” Doucette said.
