City settles convict’s $500K suit for $3,000
The city has agreed to settle a civil rights lawsuit brought against it by the former head of the Save Them Now program rather than incur the expense of litigating the matter.
Ronnie Wade sued in federal court for $500,000. Kingston Corporation Counsel Andrew Zweben said the city settled the lawsuit for $3,000 and that it was a business decision to do so. He said it would have cost the city more money to litigate the suit than to settle because one trip by an attorney to the Northern District of New York federal court in Utica would run approximately $2,500.
“Our settlement does not constitute an admission we did anything wrong,” Zweben said Thursday.
Wade, the co-founder and former executive director of Save Them Now, a Kingston-based program that helped men re-enter society after being released from prison or drug-treatment programs, claimed in the suit his rights were violated because the city did not immediately return money seized by police when he was arrested in 2009 and did not have a process in place for its return, Zweben said.
Zweben said the second part of Wade’s claim was “nonsense” and that if Wade had demanded his money back, it would have been returned.
Wade was arrested March 4, 2009, and charged with three counts each of felony sale and possession of a controlled substance, as well as one count each of misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance and possession of a weapon. The Ulster Regional Gang Enforcement Narcotics Team, or URGENT, said at the time that Wade’s arrest was the result of a two-month investigation into heroin sales in Kingston and the town of Esopus. At the time of his arrest, Wade was in possession of 12 decks of heroin and approximately $2,000 in cash and had pepper spray in his vehicle, authorities said.
Wade pleaded guilty in April 2009 to felony sale of a controlled substance and later was sentenced to six years in state prison.
Zweben said when cash is seized and believed to have been the fruits of a crime, it can be kept
through a forfeiture process. He said records in the city of Kingston indicated cash had been seized from Wade, but they also included a handwritten note from then-Detective Lt. Timothy Matthews of the Kingston Police Department stating the funds had been transferred to URGENT at the direction of then-Ulster County Assistant District Attorney Kevin Harp. Zweben said the note was made prior to Matthews being arrested in January 2011 on charges he stole more than $200,000 in public and private money.
There was also no return receipt from URGENT indicating the money from Wade’s arrest had been transferred, Zweben added.
In February 2012, Matthews admitted stealing more than $50,000 from the city of Kingston between Jan. 1, 2001, and Feb. 3, 2011, and more than $50,000 from Ulster County (for which he headed URGENT) between March 1, 2007, and Dec. 31, 2010. He was sentenced to three to nine years in state prison and has a tentative parole date of Feb. 15.
Zweben said Wade previously filed a lawsuit in state court demanding his money be returned, which was done. He said the city paid Wade with money it received from an insurance claim stemming from Matthews’ activities. The federal lawsuit was filed May 2013, said Assistant Corporation Counsel Daniel Gartenstein.
The Kingston Common Council voted unanimously Tuesday to settle the lawsuit.