NEW BRITAIN — A few weeks after voting down a proposal to settle a lawsuit with a terminated police officer accused of roughing up a suspect, the city council agreed to pay him $20,000 to end the case.
Jeffrey Walsh has been in litigation with the city in one form or another nearly since his arrest on charges he struck a handcuffed suspect in the face with a nightstick while responding to dispute between two brothers in June 2007.
According to court documents, the city and Walsh reached an agreement July 17 to settle the final count of a federal lawsuit he filed against police command staff in 2009.
The council voted in early August to reject the agreement, which would have given Walsh $30,000 in exchange for dropping the remaining portion of his lawsuit. But new information on the victim and the incident provided during Wednesday’s council meeting led to four council members — three Democrats and one Republican — changing their votes to favor the deal, said city Corporation Counsel John King.
“They also considered the resources the city would need for a federal jury trial in Bridgeport including the police presence where the amount at issue was $20,000,” King said.
Walsh’s status with the department came into question in June 2007 when command staff noticed that one of the brothers involved in the dispute he was sent to investigate had to be hospitalized for a gash on his head that required 10 staples to close. The man said Walsh struck him in the face with a nightstick while he was handcuffed. Walsh was arrested and terminated a few months later.
The city was required to pay Walsh’s legal fees, totaling roughly $50,000, when the criminal case against him was dropped in 2009 because the suspect wouldn’t testify. Walsh also lost a bid through arbitration to get his job back and then appealed the decision of the arbitrator, who sided with the city, saying it had grounds to terminate Walsh.
Walsh filed a federal lawsuit in 2009 claiming former Police Chief William Gagliardi and former Captain Philip Kennedy had him falsely arrested and imprisoned and maliciously prosecuted. A federal judge threw out much of the lawsuit earlier this year, leaving only one claim alleging Walsh was retaliated against because he asserted his First and Fifth Amendment rights during the investigation into the allegations of excessive force.
King estimated months ago that the city had spent roughly $70,000 dealing with the litigation involving Walsh.
Lisa Backus can be reached at (860) 225-4601, ext. 306, or [email protected]
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