“DANBURY 11” DAY LABORERS SETTLE CIVIL RIGHTS CASE DANBURY, U.S. AGREE TO PAY RECORD $650,000 IN FALSE ARREST SUIT

Eight day laborers who sued Mayor Mark Boughton, the City of Danbury, individual Danbury police officers, federal immigration agents, and the United States, alleging that their September 2006 arrests were unlawful and the result of Danbury’s anti-immigrant campaign, today announced that they had reached a settlement in their landmark lawsuit. The Danbury defendants have agreed to pay $400,000, and the United States will pay $250,000, in exchange for a release of all claims by the day laborers. The day laborers sued after they were picked up by a local police officer disguised as a contractor, who lured them into a van with promises of work and then transferred them into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The suit alleged that the sting operation was part of a campaign of harassment by Mayor Mark Boughton against the City’s latino residents and violated their constitutional rights. “Our clients are thrilled,” said Katie Chamblee, a student in Yale Law School’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic who represented the day laborers. “This is the largest monetary settlement ever paid out to day laborers by any municipality in the country.” “Danbury has long denied responsibility or culpability for the arrests of the Danbury 11,” said Joel M. Cohen, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, who served as cocounsel in the case. “We are pleased that the plaintiffs’ determination to see justice done has been rewarded.”

Neither the Yale Law School clinic nor Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP will receive attorneys’ fees from the settlement. They undertook the representation on a pro bono basis.

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KJ