Cops strip-search 3 HS students will pay $600,000 in settlement.

[thinkliberty]

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100714/NEWS02/7140403/Madison%20settles%20strip-search%20suit%20%20will%20pay%20women%20$600%20000

In the lawsuit, Kristy Lessley, Kara Rhodehamel and Kayla Messer alleged that police took them to a firehouse following a January 2007 traffic stop for a burned-out license-plate bulb and asked them to disrobe separately in front of a woman police officer in a restroom. Lessley also accused a male police officer of propositioning her for sex that night while transporting her to jail.

The three were seniors at Madison Consolidated High School at the time.

[littlehawk]

we pay the bill, not them.

[Jim Johnson]

we pay the bill, not them.

We don't pay the bill.
Maybe some day you'll stop paying the bill too.

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

Thanks... But I couldn't get the link to work...

[thinkliberty]

It looks like they took the story down... I guess I am going to start quoting the whole article. This is the second time this has happened.

[thinkliberty]

Here is a different article with the same basic info:

http://madisoncourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=178&subsectionID=961&articleID=57754

Women get $600,000 in strip search settlement

Peggy Vlerebome
Courier Staff Writer

Three young Madison women have settled a federal lawsuit arising from police strip searches for a total of $600,000, their attorney said Tuesday.

"The three are very pleased with the settlement," their attorney, Joseph A. Colussi, said in a statement. "Magistrate Judge (William) Hussmann advised them that the amount of settlement exceeded by three times the previous largest verdict in the Southern District of Indiana of $200,000 for improper police conduct, in a case involving excessive force.

"The Magistrate Judge also informed them that the last federal court-approved settlement for illegal strip searches from a 2001 case against Floyd County resulted in each person illegally strip searched receiving $1,000," the statement said.

The city's insurance company will pay the settlement. As a result of the settlement, the lawsuit was dismissed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in New Albany.

The settlement was reached after mediation conducted by Hussmann.

The lawsuit was filed in 2007 against the city of Madison, five police officers, two firefighters and four public officials after the three women, who were teenagers then, were stopped by police for a broken license plate light after four police officers in separate city patrol cars followed them.

After the police searched the car and the women's purses, the women were taken to the Clifty 6 fire station on Clifty Drive, where a female police officer who was not in uniform strip-searched them one at a time in a restroom while the other two waited outside the restroom guarded by a female firefighter, according to their lawsuit.

The officer who strip-searched them found marijuana on one of the girls. The women's lawsuit alleged that one of the police officers offered to not file a charge for possession of marijuana in exchange for sexual favors. The woman refused and was arrested, the lawsuit said. The charge was dropped two hours before her trial was to begin.

The three women, Kristy Lessley, Kara Rhodehamel and Kayla Messer, "brought their action for illegal warrantless strip searches, for a proposition for sex by one officer following the strip search and for public official misconduct in tolerating police misconduct, in altering a police misconduct record, in withholding police records and in removing police records from the Police Department and City Hall to the private residence of one of the public officials," Colussi's statement said.

The Madison Courier has not previously identified the three women because initially it was believed that sexual assault would be part of the case, and the Courier does not identify victims of sexual assaults.

The lawsuit was initially filed in Jefferson Circuit Court but was soon moved to federal court by the defendants. Anytime a lawsuit involves constitutional rights, it can be moved to federal court, Colussi said.

The lawsuit originally named as defendants former Mayor Al Huntington, who left office at the end of 2007; former Police Chief Bob Wolf, who retired at the end of 2007; current City Council member Jim Lee, who in 2007 was a member of the Board of Public Works and Safety, which at that time oversaw the Police Department; and former city attorney Rob Barlow, who was replaced when Huntington left office.

A federal court judge ruled in August 2009 that Huntington, Wolf, Lee, Barlow and police patrolwoman Mika Season Jackson could not be held individually responsible if the lawsuit went to trial. The judge also ruled that former Madison police officers Donald James Royce, who was fired, and Christopher Strouse, who left the Madison Police Department to join the Indiana Excise Police, and current police officers Jonathan Simpson and William Watterson would be individually liable if a jury ruled against them.

Colussi's statement said that during the lawsuit, the three women "learned that they were not the only local victims of police misconduct."

"Many, many women had been seriously mistreated and that mistreatment was tolerated by public officials for many years," the statement said. "It is their hope that by taking a stand in this case and by obtaining a significant settlement that the improper conduct they faced and others faced before them has ceased and, that should it reoccur, other women will now feel empowered to stand up to it.

"They are also very pleased that the Police Department has changed its policy and now forbids warrantless strip searches," Colussi's statement said. "They believe police records removed from the Police Department and City Hall have been returned, and the altered misconduct record has been restored to its pre-altered form. It is their hope that any complaints concerning police mistreatment of women are now being handled in accordance with approved police discipline procedures and no longer tolerated by supervising officials.

"The resolution of this case allows the young women to get on with their lives and college educations, and allows the many officers who are fine public servants to continue to do good work and not be tarnished by the inappropriate conduct of a few," the statement said.

[DavidForthoffer]

A related article:

Mayor responds to suit settlement
The Madison Police Department of today is different from the one that was the subject of a lawsuit that was filed by three women who were strip searched, Mayor Tim Armstrong said Thursday in a statement. The settlement of the lawsuit was announced this week.

"While the lawsuit was originally filed in 2007, it was one of the first issues I dealt with after taking office in 2008," his statement said. "We made some adjustments we felt were needed in the MPD, and we believe that our current police department is serving our residents exceptionally well.

"Chief John Wallace and I have worked to implement standard policies and procedures to improve both the professionalism and structure within the department," the statement said.

He said the city "is pleased to get this issue resolved."

The city will pay the three women a total of $600,000.

"The settlement will be paid fully by the city of Madison's insurance policy," Armstrong's statement said. "The decision to settle was made by the insurance company, in part due to the amount of attorney's fees that were being incurred as a result of the suit."

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

So... If the city had a "pro bono" attorney, then the insurance company WOULDN'T have settled?

sheesh...