More than 1,000 strip searched in Broward to get $1,000 settlement

By John Holland | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

August 27, 2008

More than 1,000 people improperly strip-searched by the Broward Sheriff's Office are about to get paid, taxpayers and insurance companies will get off cheaper than expected and lawyers will hit the jackpot.

Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey Streitfeld has approved a final settlement giving $1,000 to anyone strip-searched after arrests on minor crimes like trespassing, public drunkenness and loitering between December 1998 and October 2007. Those charged with felonies or violent crime are not eligible.

At least 14,000 people have been sent letters saying they may have been wrongly subjected to the searches in the Broward County jail, according to court records. Lawyers estimate about 10 percent, or 1,400, will respond before the Sept. 1 deadline, attorney Kevin Kulik said Tuesday.

If that figure holds, the county and its insurance carriers will shell out about $1.4 million, plus an additional $2.5 million for Kulik and attorney Gerald Richman of West Palm Beach. Lawyers for the plaintiffs and the county had originally estimated the payout could reach $11 million.

At an April hearing, Streitfeld said the complexity of the case and its length—more than five years —made the attorney fees appropriate.

"It's not unusual in cases like this for the attorneys to make more than all the plaintiffs [combined]," Kulik said. "It is a lot of money, but this has gone on for years [since 2002] and we've done a lot of work. The lawyers fees are part of the punishment."

Anyone who believes he or she is eligible to receive the settlement can get information at the claims Web site, www.browardcountystripsearch.com. The information is also available at 877-465-3138.

The two main plaintiffs, Martha Echeverry and Daisy Cole, will each collect $50,000 because they carried the bulk of the burden for the entire class action, according to the settlement agreement Streitfeld approved last week. Echeverry and Cole were arrested and strip-searched while in jail on misdemeanor charges that were eventually dropped.

In 1998, Sheriff Ken Jenne initiated the strip-search policy, which has been widely discredited and has brought lucrative settlement agreements in New York, Miami and elsewhere. Jenne is serving a federal prison sentence on unrelated charges.

Only one person filed an objection to the settlement, claiming he had been arrested at least eight times and should be allowed to collect $8,000. But Jonathan Campos had been charged with three felonies and five misdemeanors and had never been strip-searched, according to court records.

Campos also skipped a hearing scheduled to air his complaint, Kulik said.

John Holland can be reached at jholland@sunsentinel.com or at 954-385-7909

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