HAMMOND | A federal judge has accepted an agreement between the city and a Gary man who claimed police violated his civil rights in a 1980 rape and robbery case, paving the way for a $4.5 million settlement.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Cherry threw out a 2006 federal jury award of $9 million to Larry Mayes on Tuesday, after appellate court judges in Chicago ruled on Aug. 28 that they would allow Cherry's decision on the reduced settlement agreement.

"The settlement will be concluded shortly," Hammond Corporation Counsel Joseph O'Connor said Thursday. "And the long journey will be over."

Mayes, now 58, was found guilty by a Lake County jury in 1982 of raping a convenience store clerk during the course of an armed robbery, but won a new trial and was released from the state penitentiary in 2001 after 21-year-old DNA evidence could not conclusively link him to the crime.

Mayes' attorneys -- including Johnnie Cochran and Barry Schreck, members of O.J. Simpson's murder trial defense team -- originally had sought $19 million in damages and legal fees from the city.

Though the victim in the 1980 case positively identified Mayes in a line-up and provided police with other physical details leading to his conviction, his lawyers argued the city had failed to properly train detectives in investigating rape cases and in organizing suspect identification line-ups.

Both sides agreed to the $4.5 million settlement earlier this year, and the City Council approved selling a judgment bond in April to pay for it, but in July the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to vacate the $9 million award.

After a review of legal precedents and an Aug. 15 opinion by Cherry outlining Mayes' deteriorating health, the city's financial situation and the "amicable" nature of the agreement, the appellate court judges agreed to let Cherry make the decision.

O'Connor said attorneys David Jensen and Robert Felden on the city's legal team did an "outstanding job" minimizing the potential financial exposure from the case, as well as facing "the challenge of defending an incident that happened in 1980."

Another man convicted along with Mayes for the convenience store robbery and rape of the clerk served 17 years in prison for the crimes and filed preliminary paperwork in Lake County court this summer in preparation for a possible lawsuit of his own.