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Germaine Ware turned down a plea deal that would have dropped criminal charges against him -- if he agreed not to sue the officer who shot him.

(Rachel Dissell, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In the past decade, the city resolved a number of high-profile, high-dollar lawsuits that accused police officers of brutalizing or wrongfully arresting citizens in violation of their constitutional rights.

But dozens more that figure into the millions in taxpayer payouts quietly settled for more modest amounts and largely escaped public scrutiny. They were hidden behind confidentiality agreements, never vetted in city meetings and were kept quiet by plaintiffs themselves who feared reprisals and often faced criminal charges.

Civil rights attorneys say the city lawyers used to routinely ask that settlement terms in police excessive force cases be secret.

In a statement Friday, Mayor Frank Jackson's office said the city doesn't have a "policy" of asking for details of the payouts to be private and that they are public record. The provisions are added to agreements as part of the negotiating process, sometimes at the request of plaintiffs, Jackson's office said.

The Plain Dealer and Northeast Ohio Media Group requested settlements and judgments paid by the city in police cases early last year. When contacting people for this project, some plaintiffs declined to speak, citing the secrecy clauses.

About This Series

Northeast Ohio Media Group and The Plain Dealer reviewed the details of nearly 70 lawsuits against Cleveland officers that resulted in taxpayer payouts over the past decade. The lawsuits alleged that officers used excessive force, made wrongful arrests or needlessly escalated violence during encounters with citizens. Though the city admitted no wrongdoing in settling many of the lawsuits, taken as a whole, the patterns that emerge from the cases match closely with the patterns of police behavior that were described in a U.S. Department of Justice investigation. The city has declined the opportunity to discuss the individual cases in more detail. In response to questions, the city released a statement contending that it seriously considers all allegations of excessive force by officers. This, according to the city, has resulted in a steady drop in the annual number of incidents.

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Terry Gilbert, a veteran civil rights attorney, said the tactic has gone by the wayside in recent years.

"There was a time years ago when they insisted on it but there was no legal basis to enforce it," Gilbert said. Especially in cases involving a death at the hands of the police, the settlements become public when filed as part of an estate in probate court, he said.

Any type of confidential settlements with government agencies violates the spirit of Ohio's open records law and are also legally impractical, said Jeffrey Furbee, the legal advisor for the Columbus police department. In Columbus, city council members review, debate and approve police-related lawsuit payouts worth $20,000 or more.

"It's counter to the culture here to not be transparent," Furbee said.

Cleveland councilman Matt Zone, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, said council only is informed of settlements during the budgeting process.

"We only see numbers, no facts, no reasoning," he said. "That should change. We need to ask for more transparency in relation to lawsuits being paid out."

Cleveland's law director has the authority to settle claims against the city but also confers regularly with Jackson about pending cases, city officials said.

The more than $8 million the city paid since 2004 doesn't include a recent $13 million court judgment that the city was ordered to pay to David Ayers, a man wrongfully imprisoned for a murder DNA later proved he didn't commit. The number also doesn't include routine damage claims related to car wrecks or other accidents involving police officers.

It's also unclear whether the city provided all of the cases requested. Reporters found a number of cases referenced in public records that were not provided in response to the request.

The settlement and judgment payments come from the city's general fund unless the amount is too large for the fund to absorb. In that case, the city floats bonds, a spokesman said.

Civil attorneys and plaintiffs also pointed out other, less overt, tactics they say prevent people from speaking out after being wronged by police officers. Criminal charges are commonly used to thwart the possibility of lawsuits, said attorney Marcus Sidoti, who has handled multiple civil rights lawsuits the city settled in recent years.

"I absolutely think where excessive force is used by officers, that the justice system uses criminal charges as leverage to bar potential civil rights plaintiffs," Sidoti said.

In most cases reviewed, charges were later dropped by prosecutors, dismissed by judges or found not credible by juries.

For instance, Judi Patrizi was arrested in 2007 and charged with obstructing official business after an officer said she impeded an assault investigation at Bounce Nightclub.

In a report, an officer described Patrizi pointing in his face and swinging her arm away from him -- an account later disproven by video surveillance at the club. The charges were later dropped and Patrizi sued the city saying she was maliciously prosecuted after the unlawful arrest. The city settled her case for $87,000.

In some cases, those who claimed police brutalized or shot them were offered plea deals that would reduce or drop charges against them only if they agreed not to sue the officers or the city -- a move some call unethical.

Germaine Ware faced charges of felonious assault and failure to comply with police orders, after an incident where he was shot in the neck by a Cleveland police officer. Ware, who was 24 at the time and had no felony record, was a passenger in a car parked near a home where police were summoned for a domestic dispute.

Officer John Sanderson approached the car after he saw what he thought was a suspicious movement. The car drove off. Sanderson said it almost hit him, though Ware maintained that Sanderson shot him in the back before the car drove away.

Before his trial, county prosecutors offered that all felony charges would be dropped if Ware agreed to admit to a misdemeanor offense and agreed to not file a civil rights case against Sanderson.

"I considered that deal but I didn't want to admit to doing something wrong," Ware said. (He said it was difficult to sit in a courtroom where his actions -- not the officers -- were on trial.)

Ware sued the city and officers, relying heavily on an expert who said Sanderson violated department policy and used unsafe tactics in approaching the car. The case, handled by Sidoti, settled in 2012 for $70,000.

The city, Sidoti said, would benefit from appointing a civil rights legal advisor who could assess both the criminal and civil ramifications of the cases involving police use of force and potential wrongful arrest issues.

Sidoti said if not for the criminal charges and plea deal offers, there would likely be more civil rights lawsuits. But in some cases, people just want an acknowledgement they were treated unfairly.

"Oftentimes what they want is an apology," he said. "They don't want to be adversarial with police officers that they may see again and who work a beat in their neighborhood."

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said he didn't agree with offering to reduce or drop criminal charges in exchange for a promise not to sue an officer or the city.

"That isn't my policy," he said.

Below are see some other cases reviewed by The Plain Dealer and Northeast Ohio Media Group that involved plaintiffs who were charged with crimes after they accused the police of brutality.