Ex-student settles strip-search lawsuit for $50G

A former North Babylon High School student who claimed he was inappropriately touched during a 2005 strip-search reached a $50,000 settlement with the school district Wednesday even as a jury was deliberating in the case.

Patrick Sullivan, 19, agreed to release the school from liability.

"The school knew they were wrong," Sullivan, who was 14 at the time of the incident, said after lawyers announced the settlement at about 5:30 p.m. in U.S. District Judge Carol Amon's courtroom in federal court in Brooklyn.

The five women and three men on the jury had begun deliberating at about 3:50 p.m. In dismissing the panel, Amon told them a settlement had been reached and thanked them for their time.

Sullivan's attorney, Michael O'Neill of Manhattan, said the school district had not made any offer of a financial settlement before trial.

Sullivan had sued the district for $250,000 in damages, saying the search violated his constitutional rights. He testified that the search also made him the target of ridicule by his classmates.

The defendants, dean of discipline Barbara Brown and security guards Jack Cottone and Mike Vergano, declined to comment as they left the courtroom.

Lewis Silverman, the school district's Manhattan attorney, said the case was "resolved in the best interest of both parties."

Sullivan had accused the school officials of violating his right against unlawful search and seizure. The school officials searched him after a security guard witnessed him attempting to sell a cell phone between classes. The search came at a time when a rash of cell-phone thefts was plaguing the school, officials testified.

In closing arguments Wednesday, O'Neill told jurors they had the job of telling the government it had acted unconstitutionally in Sullivan's case.

"We don't send our kids to school to be subject to this irrational subjective government," O'Neill said.

Silverman said Sullivan's claim that he was touched on his genitals during the search was a story made up to fuel a lawsuit.