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TRENTON — The state Attorney General's Office will pay $425,000 to a mentally disabled man who was beaten by State Police troopers, bringing to a close a saga that began more than four years ago after a pre-dawn traffic stop in Warren County.

The encounter involving James Bayliss, then 21, of Hackettstown, drew widespread condemnation, including from former Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa, after a video of the incident was disclosed last year by The Star-Ledger.

"We’re glad to have closure, and I’m really ecstatic for my son," Bayliss’ father, John, said in an interview. "If it wasn’t for The Star-Ledger writing a story, this would have been washed under the carpet and nothing would have happened."

An attorney for James Bayliss, Robert Woodruff, confirmed the settlement Wednesday. Under the deal reached Tuesday, Bayliss agreed to drop his federal lawsuit against the troopers and the state, which admitted no wrongdoing, Woodruff said.

"The events of that night have been brought to light and a fair conclusion has been reached," Woodruff said.

A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, Leland Moore, said in a statement, "We believe we have reached a settlement that is fair and equitable given the plain breach of the attorney general’s use of force policy."

He added the breach was evident in the video of the beating that was captured by a State Police patrol car camera.

On an early May morning in 2009, after the State Police had searched through the night for two burglary suspects in Warren County, they stopped a car Bayliss was riding in and asked him to step outside so he could be searched.

The video of the stop showed Bayliss standing against the car as Staff Sgt. Richard Wambold Jr. frisked him. Seconds later, after what appears to be a slight movement, Wambold threw Bayliss to the ground and punched him several times in the face.

A witness in a nearby home said in a sworn court deposition that she watched from her window as two troopers, later identified as Wambold and Trooper Keith Juckett, then rammed Bayliss’ head against the front of a parked patrol car.

Wambold contended in his report on the incident in Mansfield Township that Bayliss failed to heed instructions, hid his hands, stared menacingly at troopers, tried to head-butt him during the frisk and struck him once he was on the ground.

But Bayliss’ father said the troopers mistook his son’s disability — a severe traumatic brain injury suffered in a car accident in 2005 — for defiance. The driver of the car that morning warned troopers about the condition before the beating.

Bayliss was charged with obstructing the administration of law and resisting arrest, but the case was dismissed. Neither he nor the driver of the car that day, Timothy Snyder, were involved in the burglary that prompted the search.

An internal investigation into the beating lasted more than three years until June of last year, when the State Police announced for the first time the troopers had used unreasonable force and would be disciplined.

The Attorney General’s Office said the beating violated use-of-force rules and the state took too long to investigate.

The announcements came after The Star-Ledger informed the state it intended to post the video of the beating online. The state’s position contradicted its own findings more than a year earlier, when officials determined the troopers had done nothing wrong.

Woodruff contended the state had attempted to whitewash the case until the newspaper got involved.

An attorney for Wambold, Charles Sciarra, criticized the state for defending his client and telling the federal court he did nothing wrong, and then reversing course and buckling to negative headlines after The Star-Ledger story.

"The fact they are paying this belligerent intoxicated litigant four cents, let alone more than four hundred thousand of taxpayer dollars is outrageous," Sciarra said. "Regardless, it was out of our control."

He said he will pursue claims pending in federal court against Bayliss and the state Attorney General’s Office.

The disciplinary charges against Wambold and Juckett are pending.

John Bayliss, who in the years since the incident has contacted the State Police more than two dozen times seeking answers about what happened to his son that night, said he and his family were vindicated by the settlement.

"It just goes to show, with perseverance David can still slay Goliath," John Bayliss said.

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