Portland City Council members are scheduled to vote Wednesday to approve a $395,000 settlement with the family of a 15-year-old girl killed in 2016 by an alleged hit-and-run driver who authorities suspect may have been helped by the Saudi Arabian government to flee the U.S. while awaiting trial.

The city was among several parties the estate of Fallon Smart sued in a wrongful death lawsuit in Multnomah County Circuit Court, including the alleged driver Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah.

Portland, through the Bureau of Transportation, was accused of negligence for not making the intersection at Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard and 43rd Avenue, where Smart was hit August 16, 2016, more safe for pedestrians.

The intersection didn’t have a marked crosswalk at the time and city officials reported 420 crashes that seriously injured nine people and killed another person had occurred along the one-mile stretch of Hawthorne Boulevard between Southeast 30th Avenue and 50th Avenue from 2005 to 2014.

The city has since added a marked crosswalk, installed a center median and a pedestrian crossing sign at the intersection, lowered the speed limit on that street from 25 mph to 20 mph and made other improvements.

The settlement is being offered because the City of Portland could be liable for damages in Smart’s death, according to a memo from Becky Chiao, a city senior claims analyst.

“Therefore, in order to avoid the risk of an adverse jury award, we feel it is prudent to compromise the lawsuit at this time,” the memo said.

Portland police say Noorah, then 20, was a student at Portland Community College when witnesses saw him driving at least 50 mph in a Gold Lexus, swerve around traffic and hit Smart while she was crossing the street. The driver left and was later arrested. Smart died in the street.

Noorah faced charges including first-degree manslaughter and posted bail about a month after the crash. Two weeks before his 2017 trial, authorities said, Noorah cut his ankle monitoring bracelet and couldn’t be found. The U.S. Marshals Service told The Oregonian/OregonLive that they suspected the Saudi Arabian native was helped by his home country’s government to leave the United States.

The Oregonian/OregonLive found similar cases in Oregon and across the country that suggests the practice by the Saudi Arabian government has been going on for decades.

The lawsuit was filed in 2018, seeking $15.7 million from Noorah, the city and later American Homestay Network, a Washington-based company that placed the accused driver in host homes.

A Multnomah County Circuit Judge Stephen Bushong dismissed American Homestay Network from the suit in August 2019, court records show.

A March 25 declaration from Christopher Larsen, one of the attorneys representing Smart’s estate, shows a settlement agreement was reached with the city March 3 and included a condition to give the city 60 days for the City Council to approve the settlement payment.

-- Everton Bailey Jr; ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 | @EvertonBailey

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