Attorney David Lane Calls Settlement Little More Than ‘Hush Money’
by Mark Smiley
The City of Denver announced the largest civil suit settlement in the municipality’s history at $3.25 million to former city jail inmate Jamal Hunter. The settlement appears to have made Hunter and his attorneys Rathod|Mohamedbhai LLC happy, but few others. The settlement has received federal court and City Council approval. Federal District Court Judge John L. Kane preconditioned his approval to a myriad of reforms, all of which the City of Denver has agreed to perform.
As more videotapes have been revealed showing more sheriff’s deputies abusing inmates at the city jail, the settlement has been met with little enthusiasm. Well-known litigator David Lane blasted the city saying the settlement was little more than hush money and declaring, “They will pay any amount to avoid the embarras
sment of exposing their officers to public scrutiny.”
Critics indicate it is not just the police officers and sheriff’s deputies that the city has to be embarrassed about and cover up, but now it is also their city attorneys and district attorneys. Veteran Assistant District Attorney Stuart Shapiro was caught running an apparently fake investigation on one of the sheriff’s deputies for the purpose of witness intimidation and tampering utilizing two Denver police sergeants from the Internal Affairs Bureau.
Court watcher, Linda Pierson, noted, “An entire criminal witness tampering and intimidation scheme was being run out of the City Attorney’s Office — and not a single charge of any kind has been brought to date against the assistant City Attorney, the Denver police officers or even the sheriff’s deputy they were supposed to be investigating. Unbelievably sad.”
The unfolding scandal has, however, resulted in an ever increasing number of self- imposed external reviews of the various legal and law enforcement agencies. Rec
ently demoted Sheriff Gary Wilson had four task forces underway to give recommendation while the Denver Human Services is reviewing the Sheriff’s Department’s policies and procedures. Mayor Hancock got into the act announcing his very own independent review of the Sheriff’s Department by a yet to be determined entity. City Attorney Scott Martinez in turn announced an independent review of his entire office, including himself, by a local law firm to be determined by “competitive bidding.”
Observers were quick to dismiss the sudden scurry of investigations. Trish Abbott noted, “It is standard operating procedure when you are in damage control mode. Governor Chris Christie employed it in his Bridgegate scandal and Hillary Clinton did the same for Benghazi. They will all be whitewash reports wrapped around a scam settlement within the original sham investigation.”
Abbott went on to note, “As part of the whitewash there will be dozens of recommendations from a myriad of reports that will be enthusiastically adopted by the City Attorney’s Office, the Sheriff’s Department and the Police Department none of which will make an iota of difference. Nothing will change. Scott Martinez will get to repeat his almost comical mantra that attorneys at the City Attorney’s Office are held to nothing but ‘the highest of professional standards.’ Mayor Hancock will get to hug whomever is his latest choice for sheriff and call him the ‘best sheriff in the country’ just like all of his other sad sack choices for the same position. Plaintiffs’ attorneys will continue to make millions while every egregious mega settlement will be characterized as one more chance for ‘Denver to move forward.’”
Other observers note that one of the main problems is that no one has ever been held accountable or acknowledged error within the City and County of Denver. City Attorney Scott Martinez began his press conference on the settlement insisting that the multi-million dollar payout was not an admission of liability or wrong-doing. Mayor Hancock demoted Denver Sheriff Gary Wilson while emphasizing he did nothing wrong and it was his department as a whole that had let him down. Not a single Denver sheriff’s deputy or police officer has been charged with excessive force in this century.
It is expected that the multi-million dollar settlement will result in a significant number of new lawsuits being filed. David Lane is scheduled to take to trial in September the wrongful death case of homeless preacher Marvin Booker killed in a jail house scuffle with sheriff’s deputies, but that too is expected to settle for millions of dollars.
In June alone the number of jailhouse complaints has risen over 30 percent. “It is time to take the Brink’s truck up to City Hall and empty out the city treasury,” declared Abbott. “Everybody and anybody the sheriff’s deputies have kicked around at the jail over the last few years is going to sue and collect, and every indication is that the number of such people is going to be quite high. The sheer incompetence and venality of the Sheriff’s Department, the Police Department, the City Attorney’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office is staggering. Every attorney in the plaintiff’s bar is licking their lips to get in on the action.”
Attorneys indicate that the key to getting a multi-million dollar settlement out of the city 
will be to try to obtain the internal e-mails over the last seven years between the City Attorney’s Office and the Internal Affairs Bureaus of the Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department.
“Those documents are pure gold,” stated Scott Brock. “The fact that Judge Kane might order their production is what brought the city to its knees in the Jamal Hunter case. No one believes that Stuart Shapiro is the only one in the City Attorney’s running what appears to be a criminal operation. There are present and former members of the City Attorney’s Office all over Denver that are very concerned. The multi-million dollar Hunter settlement will look like peanuts in a few years. There are going to be a lot of very rich former city jail inmates running around this city, not to mention their lawyers.”
