A federal lawsuit filed by Deryck Middleton alleges that errors in a Grand Forks investigation led to his arrest and felony charge despite evidence pointing to someone else. Middleton, 40, of Golden, Colorado, is suing the Grand Forks Police Department, the city of Grand Forks, and the Grand Forks County State’s Attorney’s Office, saying the case upended his life over a crime he did not commit.
The lawsuit, as reported by Valley News Live, stems from a January 2025 report by a school information technology employee, who found sexually explicit messages on a school-issued laptop used by a 13-year-old Grand Forks student. The messages were reportedly exchanged with a person using an alias who said he was an 18-year-old in Michigan and allegedly shared details about his age, location and schooling.
The investigation and the identification dispute
The complaint alleges that an investigating officer misspelled the suspect’s email address while searching for information about the account, producing no results. Records investigators later obtained from Zoom, which were tied to video calls mentioned in the messages, showed the correctly spelled address and an IP address traced to Michigan, according to Valley News Live.
Rather than pursue the Michigan lead, the lawsuit says, the officer focused on Middleton after finding his personal email listed as a recovery contact for the suspect’s account. The complaint attributes that connection to the earlier spelling error. It also says Middleton’s public photos of his dog may have drawn attention because the dog had the same name as the suspect’s alias.
The arrest and its alleged consequences
According to the complaint, Middleton had no known ties to North Dakota and did not fit the suspect’s stated age, Michigan residence or high school activities. A warrant was nevertheless issued. In October 2025, several armed sheriff’s deputies arrested Middleton at his Colorado home, in front of neighbors and his girlfriend, Valley News Live reported, citing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says Middleton was jailed in Colorado and later in North Dakota, where he was charged with felony luring a minor by computer, an offense the complaint says could carry a sentence of years to decades in prison. His attorneys say he was denied entry to Canada and Japan, lost his trusted traveler status, and lost business commissions after being placed on administrative leave. They also allege the experience caused lasting psychological harm, including depression and insomnia.
The charges were dismissed
Middleton’s attorneys say they identified the Michigan suspect by reviewing information already in the investigative file, including the Zoom and IP records. The charges against Middleton were dismissed. Authorities have not publicly identified or arrested the other suspect, according to Valley News Live.
Grand Forks County State’s Attorney Haley Wamstad said her office learned that Middleton was not the person who committed the alleged offense. She said prosecutors reviewed the case, dismissed the charges and took steps to have the arrest record associated with the matter expunged. Wamstad also said her office takes the accuracy of criminal prosecutions very seriously, Valley News Live reported.
Digital evidence and past identification errors
The National Institute of Justice says activity involving the seizure, examination, storage or transfer of digital evidence should be documented, preserved and available for review. That general guidance does not establish how investigators handled the account-recovery or IP evidence in Middleton’s case, according to the National Institute of Justice.
A separate identification error involved Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield, whom FBI examiners mistakenly matched to fingerprint evidence from the 2004 Madrid commuter-train bombing. The Justice Department inspector general found the examiners’ errors reflected systemic problems in the FBI Laboratory’s operations, rather than intentional misconduct or a violation of explicit procedures. A later follow-up found significant progress in implementing most recommendations; Mayfield’s case involved fingerprint evidence and a material-witness arrest, unlike the digital-account evidence and felony charge alleged in Middleton’s case, according to the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General.
The civil claims and requested remedies
The lawsuit names three Grand Forks police officers and two county prosecutors individually. It alleges violations of Middleton’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as well as negligence, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. The complaint seeks compensatory and other damages and asks a court to require new training and oversight policies at the police department and state’s attorney’s office, according to Valley News Live.
The lawsuit’s allegations have not been proven, and its outcome remains unresolved. The case will turn on the claims and evidence presented in court; the person investigators were seeking remains publicly unidentified.
