Fontana pays $900,000 in compensation after police questioned man for 17 hours

After a 17-hour interrogation, Thomas Perez Jr. suffered a complete nervous breakdown while Fontana Police detectives continued to question him about his supposedly dead father.

“We just told you we found your dead father and you don’t care,” said one of the detectives.

Perez Jr. was distraught and searching for relief. He finally broke down and gave investigators what they wanted: a confession to murder. But there was one problem: the victim, his own father, was still alive.

“This is the worst act of intentional cruelty I have seen in 40 years of prosecuting police,” said Perez’s attorney Jerry Steering. “I have never seen police officers be so cruel to anyone.”

The horrific ordeal occurred in 2018 but was not completed until 2024 after Steering worked with the city of Fontana to obtain nearly $900,000 in compensation for Perez Jr.

Six years ago, Perez reported his father missing to police after an argument broke out in the family home. When police searched the house, investigators discovered Perez Senior’s wallet, cell phone and even some blood stains. A sniffer dog also alerted police to the smell of possible human remains.

With this in mind, detectives began a relentless interrogation of Perez Jr., constantly pressing him about his father’s alleged death until the psychological effects of hours of questioning took their toll.

After brutally pulling his hair and ripping his shirt, Perez Jr. made a false confession to killing his father. In reality, 71-year-old Perez Sr. was alive. He went to his girlfriend’s house but didn’t have his cell phone with him.

“I never thought it was easy – maybe even possible – to get a completely innocent person to confess,” Steering said. “After seeing the video and the interrogation of Tom Perez, I suspected that they could get you and me to confess to the murder of Abe Lincoln if they wanted to.”

The marathon inquisition carried out by the Fontana police was described as pure psychological torture.

“It’s incredible. They’re not amateurs, they know what they’re doing and they know how to do it,” Steering said.

Steering said that even when investigators learned his father was alive, they did not tell Perez Jr. Instead, they placed him in psychiatric care.

“When they found out, they didn’t tell him, they took him into custody,” Steering said. “They took him into civil protective custody, had him committed to a mental hospital, and then told the hospital that he was in custody and that they were not allowed to have any contact with him.”

KCAL News contacted Fontana Police and the City of Fontana before close of business Friday but received no response.