The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Leslie Allen Merritt Jr., the man authorities had accused in a series of shootings on Phoenix freeways in 2015 before charges against him were dropped.

The deal is for an undisclosed amount of money and involves only County Attorney Bill Montgomery's office, documents filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court and signed by Judge David G. Campbell show.

It does not include the Arizona Department of Public Safety, whose investigators have been accused of rushing to judgment and using slapdash police work under intense public pressure to build a case against whoever shot vehicles on Interstate 10 and other Valley freeways.

Merritt, who was jailed for seven months before being released and the case against him dismissed, originally asked for $2.5 million apiece from the state of Arizona, Maricopa County and Montgomery. That lawsuit against the state and county alleged false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Merritt's attorney, Jason Lamm, declined to comment Thursday about the settlement and the allegations against the state, citing the continuing nature of that part of the case.

Neither Montgomery nor the Department of Public Safety provided comment by midmorning Thursday.

A county spokesman said the agreement in the works is tentative. He would not discuss the details before elected officials act on it and the arrangement is made public — possibly as soon as the Dec. 10 Board of Supervisors meeting.

An arrest as Valley demands action

Merritt’s arrest made national news following a string of shootings on Interstate 10 and other Valley freeways between August and September 2015. Bullets shattered windows and lodged themselves in the bodies of commuting vehicles.

No one was seriously injured.

Department of Public Safety investigators said they connected Merritt to four of the 11 incidents through ballistics testing, matching bullets and fragments to a gun he owned.

Merritt was arrested Sept. 18, 2015.

Indicative of the how high-profile the case was, Gov. Doug Ducey stepped into the fray moments after Merritt's arrest and posted on Twitter, "We got him!" The tweet drew immediate criticism from those who said Ducey had implied that Merritt was guilty.

Ducey was among those named in a notice of claim filed by Merritt's lawyers who sought $10 million. The governor was left off the eventual lawsuit, Lamm said previously, because they didn't think it was "appropriate for the taxpayers to have to foot the bill for basically what amounts to a split-second error in judgment.”

Merritt remained jailed until April 19, 2016, even as he and others highlighted gaps in the investigation — most notably that shootings continued even after he pawned the gun that investigators said linked him to the crimes.

He was released from custody after a ballistics expert challenged the evidence that led to his arrest. Maricopa County prosecutors dismissed the charges against Merritt without prejudice, leaving open a window for prosecutors to refile charges in the future.

They have seven years to decide whether charges will be refiled against Merritt.

To date, investigators have not named any other suspects in the freeway shooter case. The Department of Public Safety has remained mum about any work being done on the case.

Investigation timeline emerges

DPS' missteps in the investigation, chronicled in Merritt's lawsuit, drew scrutiny.

Shortly after the shootings began, investigators tapped the state crime lab to try and identify the type of gun that had fired bullets recovered from four of the crime scenes — a Hi-Point, 9 mm C9 handgun, the crime lab reported.

It's a model with about 286,000 firearms in circulation.

On Sept. 17, 2015, a rookie detective went to various local shops, including Mo Money Pawn in Phoenix, and collected a Hi-Point, 9 mm C9 that had been pawned by Merritt Aug. 30, 2015.

At the time, it seemed the detective had hit the investigative jackpot. Investigators who analyzed the four crime-scene bullets said with “100 percent certainty” they were all fired from Merritt’s gun, according to the lawsuit.

But detectives soon learned there was a snag in the theory: According to shop records, Merritt sold his gun at 5:31 p.m. Aug. 30, but the final shooting his gun was linked to occurred four hours later.

“In other words, DPS recognized that only one of two scenarios could be true,” attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. Either "a) the crime lab had botched its identification or b) Incident D did not occur when Merritt’s gun was at the pawn shop.”

'Flawed methodology' as details shift

Department of Public Safety officials chose the latter and adjusted their timeline. They alleged that the shots had actually been fired days earlier but had gone unnoticed because of the vehicle’s durable tires.

The lawsuit contended the DPS crime lab used "flawed methodology" and that DPS officials knew Merritt's gun couldn't have been involved in one of the shootings but tweaked the timeline to fit their theory.

Merritt’s attorneys said prosecutors intentionally misled the grand jury by asserting that the shots had been fired days beforehand.

An independent ballistics expert hired by prosecutors said his results could not tie Merritt's gun to the bullets, nor could the evidence exclude it.

As a result of his false arrest, the lawsuit claims, Merritt suffered "severe physical pain, mental anguish, emotional distress, medical expenses and lost wages."

Lawsuits against the state continue, with no clear timeline available for a resolution.

Reach the reporter at 602-444-8515, jpohl@azcentral.com or on Twitter: @pohl_jason

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