![\"Bush](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785021308_246_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nDeja Bush left an Anaheim auto mall tucked behind the 57 Freeway as the proud new owner of a Hyundai Elantra. <\/p>\n
She signed a sales contract with Russell Westbrook Hyundai of Anaheim on March 16, 2023 and drove off the lot with her first-ever car purchase.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuying the car, in itself, was a huge accomplishment for me,\u201d said Bush, who was 18 at the time. \u201cIt really solidified my independence, being an adult and just trying to do big girl things.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that rite of passage into adulthood turned into a nightmare, according to a federal lawsuit filed by attorneys on her behalf.<\/p>\n
In the weeks that followed, Bush alleged that Anaheim police acted as the dealership\u2019s personal repossession agents after receiving a call about a stolen car. Acting on information from the state\u2019s Stolen Vehicle System, Pomona police arrested Bush on the first day of her new job.<\/p>\n
The civil rights suit, which attorneys filed last year, claimed police fabricated evidence in the case and that Bush\u2019s arrest violated her constitutional rights.<\/p>\n
After the suit appeared on the Anaheim City Council\u2019s July 14 closed session agenda, the city agreed to pay Bush $250,000 to settle the case out of court, according to her attorney Daniel \u201cSparky\u201d Abraham.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice are not supposed to pursue people on the basis of what is a civil dispute,\u201d said Abraham, who worked alongside attorney Jacob Loup on the case. \u201cI have no idea why the police would have chased this down like they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about the case on Tuesday, a city spokesperson claimed a settlement wasn\u2019t finalized \u2014 a contention Abraham disputed \u2014 and did not verify the sum to TimesOC.<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of respect for all involved, we don\u2019t have anything else to add,\u201d said spokesperson Esther Kwon Baek.<\/p>\n
In settling the case, Anaheim admits to no wrongdoing. In court documents, an attorney for the city argued the police acted in the full scope of their duties and any damages suffered by Bush \u201cwas caused solely by reason of her own wrongful acts.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bush\u2019s suit contended that the dealership dispute was contractual \u2014 not criminal.<\/p>\n
It argued that a provision allowed the dealership to legally terminate the contract if a lender couldn\u2019t be found, but had to give Bush a 10-day notice from the purchase date.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, the notice allegedly did not come until 20 days after Bush drove the car off the lot. After studying the contract with her family, she refused to return the car to the dealership, believing the request to be outside of its terms.<\/p>\n
Initially, the dealership tried to repossess the car without involving the cops, but contacted Anaheim Police Det. Leslie Vargas to report a stolen vehicle that Bush \u201clawfully purchased,\u201d according to the suit.<\/p>\n
Anaheim police officer Juan Farias arrived at the dealership on April 20, 2023 and took a police report.<\/p>\n
He expressed initial skepticism about arresting Bush for what seemed like a contractual dispute, the suit alleged. Bush\u2019s attorney, Abraham, said he based the claim on body camera footage.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bush attorneys argued that Anaheim PD acted as a \u201crepossession agent\u201d for the Hyundia dealership.<\/p>\n
(Eric Licas)<\/p>\n
Court documents continued to detail Bush\u2019s version of events.<\/p>\n
Farias entered the car into the Stolen Vehicle System at Vargas\u2019 instruction after the dealership said Bush misrepresented her income. <\/p>\n
The listing came with a notation that claimed the car \u201cwas associated with another violent crime involving a firearm in the city of Anaheim\u201d and that \u201c[t]he suspect from the violent crime was a female named Deja Bush.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bush dismissed the allegations \u2014 ones she only learned of months later \u2014 as patently false in the suit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never happened,\u201d she said. \u201cTo hear allegations like that against you, it\u2019s shocking and sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pomona police officers seized the car the same day the alert was issued by Farias and arrested Bush at her job in front of coworkers, including her supervisor.<\/p>\n
In suing for damages, Bush claimed she lost her job because she was left without a vehicle to make the long commute and to use as part of her work responsibilities. She also faced the prospect of losing her freedom with a felony count of receiving stolen property and a felony count of unlawfully taking a vehicle filed against her.<\/p>\n
If convicted, Bush faced three years in prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the beginning, I was very optimistic about the criminal case being dropped,\u201d she said. \u201cBut as so many months passed, I started to become very concerned that there was a possibility I might actually have to go to prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutors dropped the charges on Jan. 21, 2025.<\/p>\n
The suit alleges that the dealership had a personal connection to Vargas. It also added that the police department has an unofficial policy for intervening on behalf of car dealerships in private civil disputes.<\/p>\n
Russell Westbrook Hyundai of Anaheim has reported more than a dozen cars stolen under similar circumstances since 2021, according to the complaint. More broadly, Anaheim PD has responded to stolen vehicle calls from dealerships 135 times in that same period \u2014 a volume 300% higher than the Santa Ana Police Department. <\/p>\n
An Anaheim PD spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n
Bush is also suing the Anaheim dealership in Los Angeles Superior Court for allegedly filing a false police report. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hopeful that this settlement will give Deja some peace of mind,\u201d Abraham said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think that justice has been done. No matter what happens in these cases, I don\u2019t know if she\u2019s ever going to be comfortable going and buying a car from a car dealership again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deja Bush left an Anaheim auto mall tucked behind the 57 Freeway as the proud new owner of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[104488,163,165,164,1052,283,1436,1409,3622,16095,165132,7036,165133,49505,236,165134,11469],"class_list":["post-412395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-abraham","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-attorney","tag-car","tag-case","tag-city","tag-court","tag-dealership","tag-deja-bush","tag-last-year","tag-leslie-vargas","tag-new-job","tag-police","tag-sale-contract","tag-suit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}