Results tagged “settlement”

Coming on the heels of yesterday's report on the questionable conditions and lack of legal access in a little known immigrant jail in the West Village, the federal government has agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle the cases of five Muslim immigrants were among hundreds of noncitizens jailed in Brooklyn for months after 9/11 without charges. According to the Times, the plaintiffs — whose names were cleared but were still deported — accepted the payout after seven years of court cases. A larger suit filed by other detainees is ongoing.

Sparks Steak House in midtown has settled a class-action lawsuit filed by waiters who accused owners of skimming money from the tip pool and using it to pay other workers, including bartenders, the pastry chef, the wine-cellar master and banquet manager. The waiters sought $5 million, but settled for $3.15 million, and more than 40 waiters should receive over $20,000 each from Sparks, the fifth-highest-grossing restaurant in the city. "What're you going to do," Sparks' owner Michael Cetta asks the Post.

What one way a suspected drug gang member can muster up some cash legally? By suing the city! An alleged Brooklyn drug crew has apparently raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars by filing civil rights lawsuits against the city—all because the city rather settle the suits than go to court. A NYC Law Department spokeswoman told the Daily News, "Although we are often successful at trial, it can be more expensive to defend a case than to settle it."

A man who was wrongly jailed on Rikers Island for 17 months has accepted a $145,000 settlement with the city because a detective misidentified his fingerprints. Dwight Gomas was residing in Atlanta in 2004 when he was suddenly arrested by U.S. marshals for an armed robbery at a Howard Beach jewelry store. Detective Eileen Barrett had matched a partial finger print from the crime scene to Gomas, whose prints were on file after his only prior arrest as an adult: driving with a suspended license in Brooklyn. Gomas maintained his innocence before a grand jury, but was indicted and couldn't make bail. Languishing on Rikers, his Legal Aid lawyer urged him to accept a plea offer of five years in prison, but he refused. Luckily, veteran detective Daniel Perruzzaa finally conducted a routine review of the fingerprints. He tells the Daily News, "When I looked at it, I said, 'You know what? This is a screwup; this is not his fingerprints." Oopsy! Gomas was released after 523 days in jail, but by then his girlfriend and their child moved in with another man. On the plus side, he pulled in $145K in less than two years on Rikers, so we're sure there's no hard feelings.

A 2004 Little League game-gone-wrong has earned a Staten Island family a $125,000 settlement, according to the Staten Island Advance. The lawsuit, filed by mother Jean Gonzalez, alleged that the New Springville Little League and its parent company, Little League Baseball Incorporated, were negligent in instructing her son Martin Gonzalez about proper sliding techniques before a May 2004 game, when her son was instructed by his coach to slide into second base. The slide ended in ligament and meniscus tearing (that's a knee injury in doctor-speak) for Martin, who was 12 at the time and has had two surgeries to repair the damage in the five years since. Some lawyers on the sidelines have suggested this was a weak case, given that anyone who plays sports usually assumes there's always some possibility of getting hurt, but as the Gonzalez's lawyer Alan Glassman points out, "Apparently, the Little League International and the local Little League must have felt that I had some justification for the commencement of the action." Now, if only Glassman can explain why the lawsuit was filed some three years after the injury, the statute of limitations equivalent of the bottom of the ninth.

A former NYPD narcotics officer who was shot in the back by a fellow cop during a drug bust eleven years ago has agreed to a $3.25 million settlement with the city, far less than the $31 million he originally sought. It's better than nothing, but Dexter Brown, who takes steroids every day just to get out of bed and needs a cane to walk, is, understandably, still pissed about the shooting—especially since the NYPD has not admitted any wrongdoing nor disciplined the cop who pulled the trigger: Detective Luis Lopez, who is still on the force.

The NY Post reports today that the city will pay $25,000 to a Brooklyn man as part of a settlement deal in a case involving the NYPD. Jangir Sultan, a 32-year-old Brooklyn native of South Asian heritage, had sued the police for racial profiling after they stopped and searched him 21 times at different subway stations around the city. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne maintains the searches are conducted randomly, settlement nonwithstanding: "We did not stop him based upon his concerns...The fact that he was stopped for other reasons is untrue." Of course, the chances of being stopped 21 times for a truly random search are something astronomical, but sometimes it's easier to shell out a few grand than get bogged down in dirty details. Plus, it seems the police have their hands full with a different subway case anyway.

After her husband was sentenced to 150 years in prison for running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, Ruth Madoff issued a statement. It begins, "I am breaking my silence now, because my reluctance to speak has been interpreted as indifference or lack of sympathy for the victims of my husband Bernie’s crime, which is exactly the opposite of the truth... I am embarrassed and ashamed. Like everyone else, I feel betrayed and confused." Her full statement is after the jump; earlier, Bernard Madoff told the court that she cries herself to sleep every night.

A paralyzed man who broke his neck in that 2003 Staten Island Ferry accident wants his lawyer to have a bigger share of his $18.3 million settlement. That's right: He wants to give his lawyer more money. James McMillan, who did not, apparently, suffer head trauma during the accident, appeared in court again yesterday to ask a magistrate to reverse another judge's ruling which reduced his lawyer's fee by almost $2.5 million. McMillan thinks his poor lawyer is entitled to a third of the money (which would be about $6.1 million), telling the Daily News, "I want him to have it. He worked for it. There's a hundred lawyers on TV saying, 'I'm the best,' but this man has walked with me through many things people wouldn't understand. He said, 'James I'm your lawyer' and I needed that comfort." It's unclear what kind of nefarious occult spell attorney Evan Torgan has cast over his client, but the judge who previously reduced his percentage was concerned that McMillan didn't understand the retainer he signed in his hospital bed just days after the crash.

After funneling $3.1 billion of clients' money to Bernard Madoff's "investment" fund, Spanish bank Banco Santander will pay just $235 million to the trustee who is liquidating Madoff's assets. Bloomberg News reports that Spain's largest bank "made the out-of-court deal to avoid being sued by trustee Irving Picard, who has been suing the conman’s biggest investors seeking the return of years’ worth of Madoff-related profits." Picard said the $235 million is 85% of what he sought, "We hope that other entities against which we have claims will likewise come forward to settle those claims for the benefit of all of Madoff’s victims." Santander, which invested in Madoff through a Geneva-based hedge fund, has offered to compensate some of its clients, but the bank still faces other lawsuits. Dealbook adds, "Spanish prosecutors have said they are investigating Santander’s relationship with Mr. Madoff’s firm and are looking into into a trip made by one of the bank’s executives to visit Mr. Madoff a few weeks before he confessed to running a worldwide, multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme."

Following yesterday's announcement that American Apparel settled the lawsuit Woody Allen filed against them for $5 million, the director now speaks out about Dov Charney & Co. Upon leaving the courthouse yesterday he said, "It's, of course, possible by going through the trial a jury might have awarded me more money, but this is not how I make my living" (the NY Post points out it is, however, more money than Vicky Cristina Barcelona made during it's opening weekend, by about $1.5 million more). He's hoping the big payout will discourage other companies from illegally using his image, even though Charney has insisted he wasn't using him to sell product. While American Apparel's head honcho would like to meet the director on friendlier terms, it's unlikely Allen would ever allow it. He told the press yesterday, "Threats and press leaks by American Apparel designed to smear me did not work, and a scheme to call a long list of witnesses who had absolutely nothing to do with the case was also disallowed by the court. I suspect this dose of legal reality led to their 11th-hour settlement." Aaaaand scene.

Sadly, the world won't see Woody Allen face off with Dov Charney in a courtroom. Not today, at least. American Apparel has posted the following statement on their website: "Today the lawsuit filed against American Apparel by Woody Allen will settle whereby he will receive a $5M payment. The vast majority of this payment will be paid by our insurance carrier who is responsible for the decision to settle this case and has controlled the defense of this case since its inception. Naturally there is some relief of not having to go through a trial but I also harbor a sense of remorse and sadness for not arguing an important issue regarding the First Amendment, particularly the ability of an individual or corporation to invoke the likeness of a public figure in a satiric and social statement."

An undercover cop who falsely identified an innocent cab driver as an ecstasy dealer has cost taxpayers $1.5 million. Yesterday lawyers for the city agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by 34-year-old hack Jesus Diaz Delossantos, who was arrested and jailed for 9 months in 2002 on charges of selling 100 Ecstasy tablets to an undercover police officer. According to Newsday, Delossantos' lawyer proved the officer wasn't even working the day he claimed Delossantos sold him 100 ecstasy tablets, and that Delossantos did not even fit the description of the man who sold the drugs. His lawyer tells the Daily News, "These cops were bad guys. They were untruthful." Crazy, right? Delossantos, who is originally from the Dominican Republic, says, "This is the end of a very ugly part of my life."

Administrators at Flushing Hospital looked the other way as a doctor sexually harassed a nurse for years, culminating in a pair of violent attacks in 2001. Nurse Janet Bianco, 55, says Dr. Matthew Miller began groping and propositioning her soon after she started working at the hospital in 1993. She tells the Daily News that the 61-year-old physician, who is married, was "very bold, aggressive, he didn't even try to hide it. Patient rooms, hallways, it didn't matter. Wherever he was, it occurred. And I wasn't the only one."

The owner of a home-based Staten Island travel agency could be in for a huge payday from Carnival Cruise lines. A Brooklyn federal court judge has ruled that Carnival violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which prohibits faxing unsolicited advertisements. Sherman Gottlieb, owner of SMG Travel, says the company has been bombarding him with fax ads since 2000, despite repeated cease-and-desist faxes and phone calls to Carnival. He pegs the number at 1,387 unsolicited fax ads, and since the TCPA sets fines at $500 per fax—with triple damages of $1,500 per fax if they're sent knowingly and willfully—Gottlieb could collect millions of dollars in damages! Carnival doesn't deny sending the faxes, but the company says they only sent maybe 540. According to the Staten Island Advance, a ruling on the amount of damages is pending; in the meantime, anybody got a cheap fax machine for sale?

Last month, the Department of Aging's commissioner Edgar Mendez-Santiago resigned, and now, the city is paying $225,000 to settle a lawsuit from a city employee who accuses Mendez-Santiago of sexual harassment. Apparently former secretary Aurelita Santos accused him of coming onto her: Her lawsuit claimed, "Mendez-Santiago put his hands down the pants of a subordinate female employee in plaintiff's presence," as well as bragged about his "gypsy" blood" and sent her threatening e-mails when she refused him. The lawsuit had been filed in February (Santos resigned in 2007), but the Times reports, "went unnoticed until Mr. Méndez-Santiago’s unexpected resignation, which occurred amid strong opposition to plans to overhaul programs for the elderly... The accusations against Mr. Méndez-Santiago tainted the Bloomberg administration’s near sparkling record of hiring strong administrators; nearly all of the administration’s senior officials have avoided scandal since Mr. Bloomberg took office in 2002." The settlement, which states the city and Mendez-Santiago do not admit to wrongdoing, includes back pay, legal fees, and damages.

Raffaello Follieri, the disgraced Italian investor and ex-boyfriend of actress Anne Hathaway, has agreed to pay back $3.6 million he scammed from investors by boasting of inside connections to the Vatican. His victims include two Catholic priests, one of whom gave Follieri $110,000 from his inheritance to pay nuns supposedly working in Follieri's office. The Post says the priest will get $40,000 back...maybe someday? Follieri is serving a 4 1/2 year prison sentence and is reportedly broke; according to the Daily News he had to sell off two Andy Warhol prints for $21,000 to help pay his legal tab. Of course, Follieri's $13 million worth of fraud seems almost quaint compared to Bernard Madoff's alleged embezzlement, but then again Madoff's shenanigans lack the cachet of Anne Hathaway and priestly vestments.

After a multi-year investigation, attorney general Andrew Cuomo has announced a $750,000 settlement for wage violations by a company that owns supermarkets in Chinatown, Elmhurst and Flushing. According to City Room, employees at the three stores worked 13 or 14 hours a day, seven days a week, totaling 90 hours a week in some cases. But most of them were paid just $360 a week, about the equivalent of $4 an hour. (The labor department says they should have made $714 a week at those hours.) In a statement, Cuomo said, "Employers who line their pockets instead of paying workers the wages and overtime they’ve earned will be brought to justice by my office." The Times tried to get a comment from Long Deng, the owner, but he's in China (hopefully not sourcing more labor). And Deng is not to be confused with the supermarket executives arrested in October for paying their grocery baggers with the tip change shoppers (sometimes) leave at the checkout.

Almost five years after a firehouse brawl left Staten Island firefighter Robert Walsh "a virtual invalid with almost no short-term memory," a judge has ordered the city to pay out $3.75 million, the Post reports. You may recall that the New Year's Eve fight was triggered by a bet between Walsh and Michael Silvestri, another firefighter, over Elvis Presley's birth date. After besting Walsh, Silvestri started up with the anti-gay slurs, which Walsh insisted was a typical part of life at the firehouse. The exchange culminated with Silvestri bashing Walsh in the head from behind with a metal chair; he suffered eye, jaw and skull fractures, and severe back injuries, thus ending his career at the FDNY. Silvestri's career also ended that night, and he did an eight month bit on Rikers. According to the Staten Island Advance, the settlement is far less than the $100 million sought by Walsh, who needs a cane to walk and suffers from post-traumatic migraine headaches.

In 1999, a NJ man who attended a Giants game--where he was served enough beer to have 0.266 blood alcohol level (legal limit is 0.08)--drove into oncoming traffic, paralyzing a 2-year-old girl and injuring her mother. Now it's revealed the Giants' beer vendor, Aramark, settled with the Verni family for $25 million. The settlement was split between daughter Antonia, now 11 and a quadriplegic on a ventilator and her mother. Though a jury's awarded $105 million to the family, an appeals court sent the case back into court. (The driver served 5 years in prison.) The Star-Ledger reports that yesterday's appeals panel found the case raised "issues of significant public concern" like whether the Giants and NFL "engaged in practices that encouraged socially irresponsible behavior, such as excessive consumption of alcohol." Verni's lawyer was happy with the deal, "She needed to get the appropriate care, and this will more than take care of her for the rest of her life."

A former library assistant who was arrested in a case of mistaken email identity will receive a little over $25,000 in a settlement with the city.

The city is not only settling lawsuits against the police during the Republican National Convention--the city also settles lawsuits against certain civilians! According to the NY Times, last week the city's legal department paid $55,000 to settle a lawsuit from June Brashares. Brashares, the Code Pink protester who interrupted President Bush's speech (she was charged and found not guilty of charges like disorderly conduct, harassment and assault), sued because she was tackled and dragged by convention volunteers. The city paid up because of "indemnification agreement" where the city agreed to pay for defending any lawsuit naming the RNC. And apparently St. Paul took note and made the RNC take out an insurance policy "covering up to $10 million in damages for civil rights violations by the police, to avoid saddling taxpayers with legal costs."

building into a home--with a gym, nanny suite, etc.--for his family. The tenants questioned whether Economakis would really live in the building, suspecting he would rent it out at market rates or flip it for millions, and the situation raised questions about rent laws for years. In the summer, the Court of Appeals ruled that Economakis could evict them; the Post says the tenants "gave in because they weren't confident they would beat" their landlord in Manhattan Supreme Court. A tenant added, "I don't think we can afford Manhattan anymore."

The self-proclaimed World's Greatest Performer, the Naked Cowboy, must have gotten a sweet settlement deal from the M&M folks. The NY Post is reporting that "he kept mum yesterday after settling a $4 million lawsuit against the Mars candy company. The underwear-clad busker, whose real name is Robert Burck, declined comment except to say 'the matter has been resolved' after pulling his case from Manhattan federal court." The tighty-whitey tough guy brought his wrath down on the company after he noticed a blue M&M wearing his trademark outfit on a big screen outside of their Times Square shop. He later declared on the Today Show: "Type II diabetes and childhood obesity is epidemic. I am the opposite of that. I don’t endorse that product."

Yesterday, the city settled a wrongful death lawsuit from the family of a man killed during the 2003 Staten Island Ferry crash. The city is giving $8.7 million to John Healy's widow Kathy and their four children.

The city spent five years and an estimated $1 million, give or take, fighting off a lawsuit brought by a group of 52 activists who were arrested en masse during an Iraq war protest in April 2003 outside the offices of the Carlyle Group, an investment firm with ties to the Bush family and major holdings in the military-defense sector. And that “bonfire of legal expenses,” as the Times puts it, is just the cherry on top of the $2,007,000 settlement that will now be paid by the city to end the suit.

Verizon won't have to worry about 65,000 workers striking, as it came to an agreement with two unions on a new 3-year contract with a total of 10.5% in wage increases and changes to retirement benefits. While the sides negotiated past its original deadline last week, recently, labors leaders were unhappy with talks, setting a new deadline of 12:01 a.m. today. The Communications Workers of America said it was a "breakthrough agreement" that "provides a framework for growth at Verizon and a good standard of living with careers for our members." The International Brotherhood of Electrial Workers cited how it protects former employees, too--one big part is that Verizon will still to "pay 100 percent of current workers’ and retirees’ health premiums."

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that Citigroup will buy back $7 billion worth of auction-rate securities from almost 40,000 customers. The auction rate market collapsed in February, and investors were left unable to sell them. Cuomo said, "Today’s settlement sends a resounding message to the entire auction rate securities industry: this type of deceptive behavior will not be tolerated." Citibank must buy back the securities by November 5 of this year; the company will also pay a $100 million fine for misleading investors.

A federal court judge in Manhattan vacated a $28.5 million settlement for four families of 9/11 victims, finding that the settlement was too large and the lawyer's fees too high. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said Maryland law firm Azrael, Gann & Franz's "entire strategy seems to have been to coast on the work of others," by not settling until late in the process. The victims were all Pentagon employees, who, per the NY Times, Hellerstein said were "modest wage earns" and that the settlements of $5.5-8.5 million were "disproportionately large" relative to other settlements. One victim's relative was distraught, telling the Post, "How can he take back our money?"

The cruel and revelatory divorce proceedings between Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook ended at 6 a.m. this morning, with the sides announcing a settlement. Brinkley's lawyer Robert Cohen said in the courtroom, "It is my pleasure to report to the court that with much hard work ... we reached an agreement."