Name: Records: $325K settlement paid in death of Victor White III in Iberia Parish Sheriff's patrol car
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Records: $325K settlement paid in death of Victor White III in Iberia Parish Sheriff's patrol car

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You are the owner of this article.You have permission to edit this article.Victor White IIIIberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal&nbsp;Victor White IIIIberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal&nbsp;Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal’s office agreed to a $325,000 settlement two years ago stemming from the high-profile shooting death of Victor White III as he sat handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol car, according to copies of checks released this week by a state sheriff’s insurance pool.The long-sealed settlement figure, public for the first time after a successful legal challenge by The Advocate, includes a $133,000 annuity, presumably for White’s minor child, whose mother sued Ackal's office and deputies on the child's behalf.The remaining $192,000 was paid in a check to Carol Powell Lexing, the Monroe-based attorney for the child's mother, Shandell Bradley, who fought the release of the settlement figure. Powell Lexing did not respond Thursday or Friday to emailed questions.The case dates back six years. White was 22 when a .25-caliber gunshot tore through his chest while he was detained outside the sheriff’s Patrol Center after a drug arrest. He had been handcuffed from the back.A coroner ruled it a suicide, and state and federal prosecutors declined to pursue any charges after investigations by Louisiana State Police and the FBI turned up insufficient evidence of a crime.However, White’s unusual death drew a spotlight on Ackal's office, helping spark a federal civil rights probe into abuses at the hands of Iberia Parish deputies.That investigation would result in guilty pleas by 11 deputies, several of whom furnished sworn accounts of sordid police abuse, often racially motivated, on the streets of New Iberia and inside the parish jail. Those deputies claimed Ackal orchestrated or endorsed it all. A federal jury in Shreveport went on to acquit Ackal of civil rights charges at a 2016 trial.Ackal returned to the Sheriff’s Office, but at 75 and hobbled physically and politically, he passed last year on a run for a fourth term. Ackal officially leaves office at the end of June.The biggest stories in business, delivered to you every day. Sign up today.Indemnity and excess insurance policies covered the settlement in Bradley v. Ackal, the details of which were recorded at a closed federal court hearing in March 2018, after which a magistrate judge sealed the transcript.The newspaper requested copies of checks and ledgers involving settlements of claims against Ackal's office a few months later from the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association's insurance pool. The agency blacked out the dollar amounts in Bradley's case, citing the federal judge’s seal. The Advocate and its Acadiana television partner, KATC-TV, intervened.U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick Hanna sided with Bradley, the boy’s mother. In a 23-page ruling, he put the child’s privacy rights above the public’s right to know. But in March, a federal appeals court panel reversed his decision.The panel found that Hanna, “relying on erroneous conclusions of law and misapplying the law to the facts," abused his discretion in keeping the settlement amount sealed. The opinion cited the First Amendment, Louisiana public records law and a “common law right to inspect and copy judicial records.”Among other failings, Hanna hadn’t considered that the settlement involved “public officials or parties of a public nature and matters of legitimate public concern."The appeals court issued its final order on that decision last week. The newspaper repeated its earlier request for the checks on Thursday. The Sheriffs' Association insurance pool, which booted Ackal from the program in 2016 over excessive payouts, released the records within a few hours.The $325,000 settlement is among the bigger payouts from a host of lawsuits that Ackal’s office has resolved over the past several years, totaling more than $6 million. Many of them were claims of abuse by deputies.The largest settlement, at $2.5 million, went to Derrick Sellers, a former U.S. Marine with brain and back injuries he claimed he suffered in 2013, when four deputies led him down a hallway of the Iberia Parish jail and beat him in a scrum captured on the sheriff's video system.© Copyright 2022 , 840 St. Charles Avenue New Orleans, LA&nbsp;| &nbsp;|Powered by from .

You are the owner of this article.You have permission to edit this article.Victor White IIIIberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal&nbsp;Victor White IIIIberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal&nbsp;Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal’s office agreed to a $325,000 settlement two years ago stemming from the high-profile shooting death of Victor White III as he sat handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol car, according to copies of checks released this week by a state sheriff’s insurance pool.The long-sealed settlement figure, public for the first time after a successful legal challenge by The Advocate,...

Records: $325K settlement paid in death of Victor White III in Iberia Parish Sheriff's patrol car

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