TRENTON — The state Attorney General's Office has agreed to pay $150,000 to a Philadelphia man who was injured in a pre-dawn car crash in 2009 involving a State Police vehicle, and then kept in the dark for two years about the identity of the trooper who was driving.

The man, Clayton Tanksley, was struck from behind by an unmarked patrol car while traveling on Interstate 295 in Camden County, rolling his sports utility vehicle onto its roof and leaving him hanging upside down from his seat belt as he awaited emergency crews.

The troopers who arrived first at the scene not only did not ask the off-duty trooper, Detective Sgt. William Billingham, to take an alcohol test, but also used his undercover identification on their accident report, sending Tanksley on a two-year search for someone who did not exist.

Tanksley learned Billingham's true identity in 2011 as part of a Star-Ledger investigation into the incident. About the same time, the trooper was charged in municipal court with reckless driving and suspended without pay. He was then indicted on a fourth-degree charge of assault by auto, and remains suspended from the force.

He has pleaded not guilty, and the criminal case is still pending.

In response to the newspaper's investigation, published in May 2011, the State Police pledged to address the incident, adopted stricter policies on alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents involving troopers and initiated a review of the use of undercover identifications.

As part of the settlement, reached in May and finalized last month, the State Police admitted no wrongdoing and Tanksley agreed to drop all claims against the force. A spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, Leland Moore, confirmed the settlement but declined comment.

An attorney for Tanksley, Jeffrey Pooner, said the case had "an unbelievable amount of value" but that Tanksley had been backed into a corner because both the state and Billingham's insurance company had said they would not pay any damages awarded by a jury because he was not acting in an official capacity.

That move limited the amount they could collect, Pooner said, even if a jury awarded a large sum of money.

"Their argument was this guy didn't have permission to be in the car," Pooner said.

A second attorney for Tanksley, Charles Nugent, said the settlement was a "very good result" in terms of the injuries his client suffered.

"The cover-up, while in my opinion improper, unethical, maybe even criminal, didn't produce any damages in a legal sense to Mr. Tanksley because the injuries were sustained in the accident," Nugent said. "It was going to be difficult to prove any damages arising from the cover-up."

An attorney for Billingham, Steven Secare, has dismissed accusations of a cover-up as "pure nonsense."

Soon after the crash, State Police superior officers circulated a memo stating Billingham "was at fault" and should be "held accountable," but it did not mention alcohol. About the same time, Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes was told of the accident but did not take any action.

"There was nothing on the radar at the time," Fuentes told lawmakers at his reconfirmation hearing in 2011.

A State Police investigation was launched three months after the accident when the Attorney General's Office received an anonymous letter claiming Billingham's intoxication that night had been covered up.

The State Police later learned from records at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, where Billingham was treated for six broken ribs, that his blood-alcohol level was 0.276 — more than three times the legal limit.

A spokesman for the State Police, Capt. Stephen Jones, told The Star-Ledger in 2012 that troopers involved in the incident had been disciplined, but he declined to identify them or discuss the punishment on the grounds that the information is confidential.

"It was basically a slap on the wrist," Nugent said.

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