After being wrongly jailed for days, a pair of New York men plan on filing a $2 million law suit.  The men, Cesar Rodriguez, 33 and his friend Jose Pena, 48 were on their way to a party on January 15th.  While en route they stopped at a convenience store.  Upon exiting the store, police stopped them.  The store had not just been burglarized, the "get-away" car, a Ford minivan, was properly registered, it did not seem that a crime was being committed, yet for un-reported reasons, an officer asked to search the minivan.  Presumably, with nothing to hide, Rodriguez allowed the search to commence, noting that he even opened the door for the officer.  After poking about, the officer emerged with a sandwich bag shouting "Bingo!"  Rodriguez claims he tried to explain to the police that it was only candy in the bag but he was handcuffed anyway as more police cars arrived at the scene.  The men were jailed for possession of cocaine, even though they say they tried to convince the officers to taste or test the substance.  They say the police only replied by yelling at them to shut up.  Pena spent 3 days in jail while Rodriguez was confined for 5.  The Bronx District Attorney office dropped the case upon discovering that the substance was in fact coconut candy but the pair hired attorney Neal Wallerstein anyway.  Rodriguez keeps the candy, that he buys almost daily, in plastic bags because he says it crumbles easily.  The New York Police Department made no comment but apparently their officers carry field-test kits for precisely this kind of scenario.  Wallerstein says that the police should have realized their mistake quickly, had they used the kit.

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