WORCESTER - The city will pay $2.1 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Police Department and the officers accused of coercing a confession from a young mother charged in 2008 with suffocating her 13-month-old son.

The criminal case against Nga Truong, who was 16 at the time of the child's death, was dropped in 2011 after a judge suppressed Ms. Truong's statements to police.

Ms. Truong sued the city in 2012.

In a statement, the city said it would pay the money over three years.

"All parties are prohibited from commenting beyond confirming that the case has been settled, as per the terms of the settlement agreement," the statement said. Ms. Truong's lawyer, Edward P. Ryan Jr., could not immediately be reached Thursday afternoon.

Ms. Truong was arrested in December 2008 in connection with the death of her son Khyle in the family's home on Henderson Avenue. Police said at the time that Ms. Truong initially told investigators she found her son unconscious in his crib, but later admitted that she suffocated the baby with a teddy bear.

From the outset Mr. Ryan, who also represented Ms. Truong in her criminal case, said he had concerns about how his client was interviewed by police. Police disagreed at the time, but in February 2011 a judge ordered her confession suppressed. Judge Janet Kenton-Walker said in her decision that Detectives Kevin Pageau and John Doherty resorted to "deception regarding medical evidence" and continually told the teen "that she was just a juvenile and if she would admit what she did she would remain in the juvenile court where she would get help."

The judge in the 2011 ruling found that the detectives did not offer Ms. Truong a "genuine opportunity," as required by law, to consult with a parent, interested adult or lawyer about her right to remain silent before she agreed to speak with police. Ms. Truong was held without bail at the Chicopee Women's Correctional Center until the charges against her were dismissed in August 2011.

In 2012, Ms. Truong filed the federal civil rights lawsuit. In addition to the civil rights charges, she alleged malicious prosecution, false arrest and false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Ms. Truong's case gained widespread attention in 2011 after WBUR-FM public radio reporter David Boeri successfully petitioned Worcester Superior Court to allow the release of the police interrogation video.

The video clips showed Sgt. Pageau pressing the tearful girl to admit she killed her baby and a younger brother who had died as an infant years before; they swept aside her repeated denials and falsely claimed that the medical examiner ruled the infant boy had been smothered. Sgt. Pageau and Detective Doherty also told Ms. Truong that her treatment by the courts would be more lenient, and that they could help her and her brothers get help from social workers, if she confessed to the murder.