County Settles Suit for $1.25 Million
The Board of Supervisors will pay $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit by a rock concert promoter who claimed harassment by the Sheriff’s Department ruined his concert by discouraging fans from attending.
The supervisors voted to settle with Shawn Green of Chula Vista rather than appeal a $1.5-million award by a federal jury last December.
Green asserted that his two-day “Campin’ Trip” concert in the Anza-Borrego Desert in 1997 was ruined by deputies who searched and harassed fans and discouraged them from attending by establishing a checkpoint along the road leading to the desert venue.
Green said he went deeply in debt when only half the number of people he expected attended the rock, reggae and hip-hop concert. The jury found that deputies violated Green’s constitutional rights.
Before the trial the U.S. Border Patrol, which assisted in the checkpoint, settled with Green for $25,000.
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