A LaRue County man's identity was stolen during a police encounter in Louisville, and the department won't explain how it happened or how they'll prevent it from happening again.

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David Hathaway was heading to work at 3 a.m. on November 20 when he saw police lights in his rearview mirror.

The 60-year-old pulled into the gas station where he stops for coffee every morning, figuring it was a routine traffic stop. Instead, a Bardstown police officer placed him in handcuffs and told him he was being arrested for failure to appear on a fleeing and evading warrant.

"Buddy, I'm 60 years old. I don't do any of this, I can promise you," Hathaway remembers telling the officer.

The officer looked at the citation that listed the suspect's description: 5 feet 8 inches, 185 pounds. Hathaway stands 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 230 pounds.

"He said, 'You're a big boy,'" Hathaway recalled. "I said, 'I know it. I said there's a big difference in five foot eight.'"

The officer agreed. But he arrested Hathaway anyway. "He said, 'Well, I still have your information, so you're going to jail,'" Hathaway told me. Bardstown Police confirmed the officer was following protocol- using available information when he made the arrest.

This encounter wasn't the problem... it was a citation that had happened months earlier.