LANDLORD SETTLES BIAS SUIT WITH MUSLIM PAIR

A Denver landlord who was recorded telling her tenant to find an “American person ... good like you and me” to sublease her property instead of a Muslim father and son seeking to open their second restaurant must pay the men $675,000 under a settlement.

The three men sued last year, generating local news coverage and online pleas to boycott the woman’s business, which mirrored the response to racist comments captured on tape or video across the U.S. in recent months. Public attention soon faded, and attorneys said they were headed for trial until the night before jury selection was set to begin in Denver.

The parties finalized the settlement in April. Rashad Khan said it was a relief after more than a year of reliving his first experience of someone refusing to work with him and his father, Zuned, because of their faith and race.

“My dad and I just wanted to know that there’s justice, that she can’t do this,” said Khan, 36.

The dispute focused on a building in the Denver neighborhood of Capitol Hill, surrounded by homes, coffee shops and grocery stores.

Craig Caldwell began renting the building on a corner lot in 2016 but decided to close his fried chicken restaurant there in late 2017. Caldwell had to continue paying rent for the five-year lease unless he could find someone to sublease it.

The Khans seemed like his solution. They hoped to open a second Indian restaurant, replicating a fastcasual model that proved popular in the nearby city of Boulder. Caldwell was sold after checking their financial records, trying the family recipes and seeing both father and son working the counter at their business.

But weeks went by without approval of the sublease agreement by the building’s owner, Katina Gatchis. Caldwell said he was shocked when the woman’s son blamed the Khans’ Islamic faith.

“I didn’t believe it, and I didn’t think anybody would believe me,” said Caldwell, who is 71 and white.

He decided to use a voice recording app on his cellphone during his next conversation with Gatchis.

“American person!” Gatchis said in the recording. “American person, I need. Good like you and me.”

Attorneys for Gatchis did not return phone or email messages seeking comment on the recordings and settlement. — The Associated Press