Slain woman's mom awaits Nassau settlement

The mother of a woman murdered by her estranged boyfriend said Friday that she will not rest until the financial settlement she signed with Nassau County last week has been approved.

Sharon Dorsett, who filed a federal lawsuit last year saying that police failed to protect her daughter, Jo'Anna Bird, from the man who was convicted in April 2010 of her murder, said Friday that she has agreed to a settlement with the county.

The lawsuit sought more than $20 million in damages. Neither Dorsett nor county officials would disclose the terms of the settlement.

"I'm not going to rest until I finally have justice for my daughter," Dorsett said in an interview Friday.

Dorsett's lawyer, Frederick Brewington, of Hempstead, said the agreement must now be signed by the county attorney. It will then go to the county's legislative Rules Committee for approval, he said, before it is considered by the full County Legislature and the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, the state oversight board.

Brewington said the timeline for completion of the agreement is up to the county, adding that he does not know if the settlement amount or other terms will become public.

A county spokeswoman did not return a call seeking comment Friday.

"They've got a long road to recovery," Brewington said of Bird's family. "This was not just a death, it was a nightmare." Prosecutors said Bird's ex-boyfriend, Leonardo Valdez-Cruz, terrorized her for months before finally breaking into her New Cassel apartment and stabbing her to death on March 19, 2009. Valdez-Cruz is serving a life sentence.

Two months after Bird's death, then-Nassau Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey announced that an internal investigation revealed that seven officers, including a patrol supervisor, did not properly investigate at least four domestic-violence visits to the home where Bird was staying in the days before Valdez-Cruz, then 23, of Westbury, killed her.

Mulvey did not reveal the names of the officers and police have never said what disciplinary action was taken against them.

Dorsett has also said that police waited too long before entering the crime scene and that Bird could have been saved had they intervened sooner.

The 700-page internal affairs report on police actions in the days before Bird's death has never been released publicly, though both Brewington and lawyers for Newsday and News 12 continue to fight for that release.

On Friday, lawyers for the two media organizations submitted a letter to U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt arguing that a settlement in the case should not negate the public's right to see the report and requesting a hearing on the issue.