Ferrari v. Leonard et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
CHAD MARK FRANCO FERRARI,
Plaintiff,
v.
DETECTIVE DANIEL LEONARD, et al.,
Defendants.
No. 2:26-cv-01866
OPINION
This opinion addresses the Motion to Dismiss (Dkt. No. 33) filed in this matter
by Defendant Vincent Corrigan.
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff Chad Ferrari, who is pro se, brought suit against several defendants
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 after he “was arrested three times in seven months[.]”
Complaint (Dkt. No. 1) at ¶ 1. Plaintiff was first arrested in August 2025 for Unlawful
Use of an Audio or Video Device in Court. See Commonwealth v. Ferrari, MC-51-CR-
0015343-2025. He was then arrested in January 2026 for Contempt for Violation of
Order or Agreement and Terroristic Threats with Intent to Terrorize Another. See
Commonwealth v. Ferrari, MC-51-CR-0000640-2026. Finally, he was arrested in
February 2026 for Ethnic Intimidation, Retaliation Against Prosecutor or Judicial
Official, Terroristic Threats with Intent To Terrorize Another, Stalking, and
Harassment. See Commonwealth v. Ferrari, MC-51-CR-0004295-2026. Plaintiff
maintains that “[e]ach arrest rests, directly or indirectly, on a [protection from abuse
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(PFA)] order[.]” Complaint at ¶ 3. Corrigan is the prosecutor assigned to Plaintiff’s
cases. Motion at 4.
Plaintiff names Corrigan in three of the eight counts in his Complaint: First,
Corrigan is named in “Count II—Fourth Amendment: False Arrest/Wrongful
Imprisonment (Three Arrests)[.]” Complaint at ¶ 56. In Count II, Plaintiff alleges
that the three arrests were not supported by probable cause. Second, Corrigan is
named in “Count IV—Fourteenth Amendment: Brady Suppression[.]” Id. at ¶ 58. In
Count IV, Plaintiff contends that attorneys involved in his case failed to disclose the
name of a material witness in a timely manner. Finally, Corrigan is named in “Count
V—Giglio/Brady: Prosecutorial Conflict Non-Disclosure[.]” Id. at ¶ 59. In Count V,
Plaintiff asserts that the District Attorney’s Office failed to disclose a conflict
involving a judge and prosecutors. Corrigan now “moves to dismiss Plaintiff’s
Complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” Motion
at 1.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
“A 12(b)(6) motion tests the sufficiency of the allegations contained in the
complaint.” Kost v. Kozakiewicz, 1 F.3d 176, 183 (3d Cir. 1993) (citation omitted). In
deciding a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the Court must determine whether
the complaint contains “sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim
to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)
(quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “A claim has facial
plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw
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the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id.
(citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of
action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id. (citing Twombly,
550 U.S. at 555).
To determine whether a complaint states a claim, a court must accept all of
Plaintiff’s factual allegations as true. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. However, a court may
dismiss a complaint that contains no “more than unadorned, the-defendant-
unlawfully-harmed-me accusation[s]” and “‘naked assertion[s]’ devoid of ‘further
factual enhancement.’” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555,
557). Courts need not accept “legal conclusion[s] couched as factual allegation[s].”
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555; see also Morse v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist., 132 F.3d 902,
906 (3d Cir. 1997). Dismissal is warranted when a complaint alleges “facts [that] do
not permit the court to infer more than a mere possibility of misconduct.” Iqbal, 556
U.S. at 679.
III. ANALYSIS
A. Count II
In Count II—the first count involving Corrigan—Plaintiff argues that each of
his arrests “was made on a warrant predicated on materially false or fraudulent
information.” Complaint at ¶ 56. With respect to his arrest for using a recording
device in court, Plaintiff contends that he was arrested by Detective Daniel Leonard.
Id. at ¶ 9. He maintains that a “warrant issued on a deliberately false probable-cause
statement—that signs [explaining recording was prohibited] were posted when they
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were not—is void[.]” Id. at ¶ 56. Taking Plaintiff’s allegations as true, he still fails
to state a claim. The statute in question, 18 Pa.C.S. § 5103.1, does not require signage
indicating that recording is prohibited.1 Accordingly, he has failed to state a claim
against Corrigan.
Regarding his second and third arrests, Plaintiff alleges they “rest on a PFA
filed for residential possession … authorized by a judge later arrested for the
predicate conduct [ ] making those warrants equally void under Malley v. Briggs, 475
U.S. 335 (1986).” Complaint at ¶ 56. According to Plaintiff, Judge Fanning issued a
temporary PFA order against Plaintiff and was later arrested on domestic violence
charges. Id. at ¶¶ 21, 24. Plaintiff stresses that the “gatekeeping judge who
authorized the PFA predicate was suspended for the exact conduct the PFA was
supposed to prevent[,]” insisting this “further destroys any presumption that the …
PFA was authorized through a constitutionally adequate gatekeeping process.” Id.
at ¶ 24. Plaintiff also emphasizes that, at a later hearing, counsel arguing for the
PFA order stated, “‘Because she got exclusive possession of the house’—explicitly
linking the PFA to a residential-possession objective, not protection from abuse.” Id.
at ¶ 23. Plaintiff claims that “[t]his binding on-record admission voids the probable-
cause foundation of every arrest predicated on that PFA.” Id.
1 “A person commits an offense if the person in any manner and for any purpose uses or operates
a device to capture, record, transmit or broadcast a photograph, video, motion picture or audio of a
proceeding or person within a judicial facility or in an area adjacent to or immediately surrounding a
judicial facility without the approval of the court or presiding judicial officer or except as provided by
rules of court.” 18 Pa.C.S. § 5103.1(a).
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Again, even accepting all of Plaintiff’s allegations as true, he fails to state a
claim for two reasons. First, he does not plead facts that establish the PFA order was
invalid. There is no legal basis for his contention that a judge’s subsequent arrest
somehow invalidates an earlier temporary protection order. Similarly, the vague
assertion that counsel said, “Because she got exclusive possession of the house[,]”
would not somehow invalidate the PFA order. Indeed, Pennsylvania’s Protection
From Abuse Act2 explicitly permits protection orders to “[g]rant[] possession to the
plaintiff of the residence or household to the exclusion of the defendant by evicting
the defendant[.]” 23 Pa.C.S. § 6108(a)(2). And even if the PFA were issued in error,
that would not necessarily mean officers lacked probable cause to arrest Plaintiff for
violating an outstanding, presumptively valid order.
The second reason Plaintiff fails to state a claim is that he does not sufficiently
link Corrigan to the allegedly unconstitutional conduct. He therefore fails to state a
claim both generally and against this defendant specifically.
B. Count IV
Turning now to Count IV, Plaintiff contends that the District Attorney’s
“motion naming Judge Sulman as a material witness is Brady material.” Complaint
at ¶ 58. Plaintiff asserts this disclosure was made “minutes before” his third arrest.
Id.
Plaintiff has not plausibly alleged that this information constitutes Brady
material. In Brady v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that “the suppression by
2 23 Pa.C.S. §§ 6101–6122.
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the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process
where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the
good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.” 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963). The prosecution
“has an affirmative duty to disclose such evidence even though there has been no
request for the evidence by the accused.” Johnson v. Folino, 705 F.3d 117, 128 (3d
Cir. 2013) (cleaned up). To prevail on a Brady claim, a defendant “must show that
the prosecution (1) failed to disclose evidence that it had in its files that was (2)
material and (3) favorable to him.” Johnson v. Mahanoy, 144 F.4th 178, 188 (3d Cir.
2025) (citation omitted).
Plaintiff has not satisfactorily pleaded those three elements. It appears that
Judge Sulman was presiding when Plaintiff allegedly illegally recorded court
proceedings. See Complaint at ¶ 58; see also Motion at 4 (Judge Sulman was named
“as a material witness in [Plaintiff’s] prosecution for illegally recording court
proceedings in Judge Sulman’s courtroom.”). Therefore, Plaintiff has not alleged he
was unaware Judge Sulman witnessed the conduct in question, nor has he explained
why Judge Sulman’s testimony would be material or favorable. Consequently, even
taking all of Plaintiff’s allegations in Count IV as true, he has failed to state a claim.
C. Count V
Finally, Count V is deficient as well. Plaintiff claims that the District
Attorney’s Office “failed to disclose the structural conflict” that an assistant district
attorney “assigned to the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit, the specific unit
responsible for processing PFA contempt charges … is the daughter of” the judge who
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issued the “jurisdictional predicate order” for one of Plaintiff’s criminal cases.
Complaint at ¶ 59. Plaintiff argues the “non-disclosure is a constitutional violation
independent of whether [the daughter] personally participated in any charging
decision.” Id. Plaintiff maintains that under “Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150
(1972), and Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), material information bearing on
the institutional objectivity of prosecutorial decision-making must be disclosed.” Id.
According to Plaintiff, whether any “family-connected actor participated in, was
consulted about, or was informed of any charging decision affecting Plaintiff is a
factual question for discovery[.]” Id.
This Count cannot survive a motion to dismiss for at least three reasons. First,
Plaintiff does not plead a viable claim under Brady or Giglio. Plaintiff does not
plausibly allege that the purported conflict was material evidence favorable to him.
See Mahanoy, 144 F.4th at 188. The elements of a successful Brady claim are
therefore missing.
Giglio requires the prosecution to “disclose all information or material that
may be used to impeach the credibility of prosecution witnesses where [a] witness’s
credibility is an important issue in the case[.]” Fenico v. City of Philadelphia, 70
F.4th 151, 158 (3d Cir. 2023) (citation and quotation marks omitted). Plaintiff,
however, has not specified how the familial ties between an assistant district attorney
and a judge affected the credibility of any prosecution witnesses.
This leads to a second, related reason that the claim fails: Plaintiff has not
satisfied the pleading standard. The well-pleaded facts of a complaint must “permit
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the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct[.]” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at
679; see also id. at 678 (holding there must be “more than a sheer possibility that a
defendant has acted unlawfully”). The sort of “naked assertions devoid of further
factual enhancement” present in this Complaint are not enough to “unlock the doors
of discovery.” See id. at 678 (cleaned up).
Third, Plaintiff does not explain what role Corrigan himself played in any of
the alleged wrongdoing. For these reasons, Plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon
which relief can be granted.
D. Plaintiff’s Motion to Extend
This Court also denies Plaintiff’s Motion Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1)(A) to
Extend the Time to Amend as a Matter of Course Under Rule 15(a)(1)(B) (Dkt. No.
35). In his Memorandum of Law in Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss, Plaintiff
explains that his amended complaint would:
(1) plead Corrigan’s conduct by act, with dates, sources, and the function
each act served; (2) tie each count against Corrigan to specific acts; (3)
add the July 1, 2025 search-warrant approval to the Fourth Amendment
search claim; and (4) correct the original complaint’s description of the
phone search as warrantless—the production shows that a warrant
issued on July 2, 2025, on an application bearing a notation of Corrigan’s
approval dated the day before.
Memorandum in Opposition (Dkt. No. 34) at 3; see also id. at 4–7, 16–18 (detailing
the facts the amended complaint would plead).
None of these proposed amendments would cure the problems with the
Complaint identified above. Even if Plaintiff pleads additional facts linking Corrigan
to the three Counts at issue, dismissal would still be required because Plaintiff has
failed to articulate any cognizable legal injury. Accordingly, any amendment to the
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Complaint would be futile. See Shane v. Fauver, 213 F.3d 113, 115 (3d Cir. 2000)
(“‘Futility’ means that the complaint, as amended, would fail to state a claim upon
which relief could be granted.” (citation omitted)). It is therefore appropriate to deny
Plaintiff’s request for an extension of time to file an amended complaint. See City of
Cambridge Ret. Sys. v. Altisource Asset Mgmt. Corp, 908 F.3d 872, 878 (3d Cir. 2018)
(“Leave to amend is properly denied if amendment would be futile, i.e., if the proposed
complaint could not withstand a renewed motion to dismiss.” (citation and quotation
marks omitted)).
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, this Court will grant Corrigan’s Motion to Dismiss
and deny Plaintiff’s Motion to Extend. An appropriate order follows.3
DATED: October 16, 2026 BY THE COURT:
Gail A. Weilheimer, J.
3 Because the reasons given above are sufficient to grant the Motion to Dismiss in its entirety,
there is no need to address Corrigan’s argument that he is entitled to absolute immunity as a
prosecutor, or that the Younger abstention doctrine applies. See Motion at 6–8.
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