A former St. Lucie County firefighter/paramedic who took the foot from a crash scene more than three years ago is being sued by its owner, according to TCPalm.com.
Karl Lambert filed a lawsuit late last week claiming that the actions of Cynthia Economou at the scene of the collision on I-95 on Sept. 19, 2008 were "outrageous and went beyond the bounds of decency."
Economou admitted to the crime but said she was only trying to help train her body recovery dog.
She found the foot in the wreckage about an hour after Lambert was transported to the hospital and didn't believe it was salvageable.
"It was an unrecognizable mass of flesh," she said at the sentencing hearing in 2009. "It wasn't a clean cut. You couldn't even recognize it as a foot. ... If I had thought it was somehow reattachable and usable, I would have gone to my commander.
"I never meant any malice. I never meant to cause (Lambert) any pain."
She pleaded no contest the charge of second-degree petit theft and was sentenced to six months probation, but was never formally convicted of the crime.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and also names the St. Lucie County Fire District as a defendant, claiming the district was liable in the incident, according to the report.
