With millions of dollars on the line, both sides took the sure thing rather than gambling for a better deal.
Attorneys for the city of Hammond and a Gary man who spent a third of his life in prison for a rape he did not commit agreed Monday to settle the man's lawsuit for $4.5 million rather than wait for a ruling on the case from an appeals court.
The city owed Larry Mayes, 57, about $11 million for wrongfully sending him to prison in 1982, using reckless police tactics that included hypnotizing the rape victim, manipulating a photo lineup, and withholding key evidence from Mayes' defense attorneys.
A federal jury in 2006 ruled the city should pay Mayes $9 million for sending him to jail. About $2 million in interest has accrued on the jury award since an appeal of the verdict was filed with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"We feared that the 7th Circuit was going to rule (Tuesday), and we weren't willing to take an $8 million gamble either way," Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said. "I didn't want to take a chance and lose $11 million."
The ruling is contingent on the appeals judges accepting a motion to stay the appeal because of the settlement. Although the request was not formally approved Tuesday, both sides were confident that it will be approved in coming days.
John Stainthorp, one of Mayes' attorneys, said his client started considering the city's settlement offers once they finally rose to "substantial" sums. The decision to accept a settlement was based partly on some skeptical questions from appeals judges during oral arguments in the case, Stainthorp said.
"I feel good that Larry Mayes is going to get some recompense for the time he wrongly spent in prison," Stainthorp said. "It's a credit to the mayor that he was willing to take these steps to settle (the case)."
Stainthorp said the attorneys will collect about one-third of the settlement, plus $200,000 in actual costs.
As modern DNA technology was forcing prosecutors across the country to reopen investigations that involved DNA evidence, Mayes became the first person in Lake County to be released from prison using the new technology in 2002.
Analysts ruled that Mayes could not have left the bodily fluids that were recovered from the victim in 1981.
