West Linn has paid out $1.4 million in legal settlements involving members of the city’s Police Department in the last decade, according to recently released city records.

Last month’s $600,000 settlement to Portland resident Michael Fesser to settle a wrongful arrest claim was the most recent and largest payout. Fesser was arrested in 2017 on theft allegations by West Linn police as a favor to Fesser’s boss, Eric Benson, owner of A&B Towing Co. Benson was a fishing pal of then-Police Chief Terry Timeus.

The city is insured by City County Insurance Services. According to a June 2019 audit, settled claims for West Linn before the Fesser payment hadn’t exceeded coverage for any of the prior three fiscal years. West Linn’s current gross insurance premium is $361,507.

Here are the other settlements West Linn has reached since 2010:

--$120,000 in back pay went to fired Officer Tom Newberry, terminated in 2017 for publishing racist posts on Facebook.

An arbitrator found that although the Police Department was justified in firing Newberry, his behavior was widely known among police supervisors in the agency, including then-Chief Terry Timeus, yet they did nothing to address it until local media began reporting on the posts.

The arbitrator wrote: “The Department’s top management, including the Police Chief, all viewed Newberry’s Facebook postings and took no steps to address the issue.”

--$300,000 payout to former West Linn police Capt. Victor Lancaster to settle his 2015 federal suit against the city, former Chief Timeus and former City Manager Chris Jordan.

Lancaster claimed he was fired in retaliation for testifying in support of another officer's labor violation claims against the department.

Lancaster, who had been a member of the West Linn Police Department for 20 years when he was fired in April 2014, received $180,000 in damages and wages, and his attorneys received $120,000, according to a Feb. 8, 2015, agreement.

--$2,000 to Sgt. Jim A. Doolittle under a settlement agreement signed on June 20, 2014.

Doolittle submitted a letter resigning from West Linn Police Department on June 20, 2014. The former police K9 officer was given the lump sum to go toward the cost of his animal’s maintenance and allowed to retain ownership of the police canine, Viggo. The settlement doesn’t say what led to Doolittle’s resignation.

The city also agreed to pay the medical insurance premium for him and his dependents through August 2014.

In an unusual provision, then-Chief Terry Timeus agreed to alert the state Department of Public Safety Standards & Training that Doolittle resigned under a settlement, but that Timeus wouldn’t provide any other information unless the state agency requested it. Timeus said Doolittle also would be given a chance to challenge a request for information by the state standards’ agency.

In a second unusual provision, the city also agreed to deny any public records request regarding Doolittle’s employment with the city unless ordered to release it by the district attorney or attorney general.

Doolittle was hired as a reserve officer for West Linn in September 2002, became a full-time officer the next year and resigned as a sergeant in 2014.

-- $15,000 to Chad Atkeson, who filed a hostile work environment complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries on April 25, 2013.

Atkeson argued that a hostile work environment forced him to resign and that he was denied veteran preference points during a promotional process in violation of state law.

The city agreed under a negotiated settlement to pay Atkeson $15,000, train sergeants and command staff on their rights under the public employee collective bargaining agreement and allow non-bargaining employees who seek a bargaining unit job with premium pay to self-demote into the bargaining unit before competing for such a position.

The agreement was signed April 22, 2014.

Atkeson had tried for a sergeant’s job but then-Officer Mike Stradley got the post instead.

Atkeson filed an unlawful labor practice claim in March 2013, asserting he was passed over for the sergeant job in retaliation for writing a memo that said the city's pay practices violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Atkeson later filed a similar complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries.

According to a separate suit by former West Linn police Capt. Victor Lancaster, the department denied Atkeson the job because he had been viewed as a member of "The Clique" that was critical about how the department was operated.

The job went instead to Stradley, whom Lancaster once accused of conducting an illegal search. Lancaster reported the possible violation to the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office and the Oregon Department of Justice and was told the search may have indeed been unconstitutional, according to the lawsuit. But an internal police investigation found no wrongdoing, a chief’s memo to Lancaster said.

--$350,000 to settle Officer Alexis M. Warwick’s lawsuit against the city in 2010.

Warwick alleged she was fired in April 2010 in retaliation for complaining that she was treated unfairly and denied training opportunities because she rejected unwanted sexual advances and comments and because of her marital status.

After she made her complaints, she was investigated for untruthfulness.

"To follow up my investigation with allegations that I have been anything but truthful sounds much more to me like the City is angry that I've filed charges and would like to discredit me and justify reprimanding me for filing charges in the first place; without which the investigation never would have commenced,’’ she wrote to West Linn’s human resources manager at the time, according to court records.

Under a settlement, her firing was altered to instead reflect a “voluntary resignation” as of April 10, 2010. All disciplinary letters and memos were ordered to be removed from her personnel file, and she instead was to get a positive letter of recommendation from West Linn police, written by then-Chief Terry Timeus and then-Sgt. Neil Hennelly.

The city paid her $217,194 for emotional distress plus $132,806 for attorney fees, the settlement shows.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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