I know I was unlawfully arrested on Dec 2nd. At the time of arrest the officer stated "Fail to ID" after being booked it

I’m Zoey, and I am an experienced attorney. I know your question is important to you and I will be giving it the time and attention it deserves.

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Are you saying your criminal case is still open?

First things first.  You need to work with your lawyer and successfully fight the case against you in criminal court.  You do not have a suit for an unlawful arrest if you end up guilty of the charges.  Any conviction, by plea or by trial turns a wrongful arrest into a rightful one.

It's not unusual for a person to be arrested for one set of charges and find different ones are lodged against him when they come to court.   Police are not lawyer and have imperfect knowledge of the elements of a crime, at least insofar as what a prosecutor must prove in court.    When you fight the case, however, your lawyer will get an opportunity to explore the basis for the police involvement and all that flowed from it to see if your 4th Amendment rights were violated and try to get the case dismissed.

Do you need me to clarify anything or to give you more information?

This is justanswer.com, an information site, and I am a criminal defense lawyer who answers questions relating to criminal cases here on this site.  We have no affiliation with the ACLU.

The contact information for the North Carolina branch of the ACLU is here:   https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/en/about/contact-us

Any other follow-up questions?

Yes, they have a lot on their plate.

Here's a link to North Carolina civil rights attorneys: https://attorneys.superlawyers.com/civil-rights/north-carolina/   If money is an issue, many civil rights lawyers will take a case on contingency. That's where you pay only filing fees and expenses. The lawyer takes his fee from the award when he wins the case. If he loses you pay no fee at all.

A lawyer will take a case on contingency when he believes he can with it, when the award is likely to be high enough for him to justify waiting for his fee and when the defendant has the funds to pay the award.

You're very welcome.

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Best new year's wishes.

Great!