Irvington Township produced a draft agreement that calls for $10,000 to be paid to a local man who claimed that he was falsely arrested for crimes including homicide and held under $2,000,000 bail "without a 10% cash alternative."
Richard Etienne's lawsuit give little detail of the events surrounding his arrest. It discloses only that allegedly "false charges" were brought against Etienne on August 4, 2013 by Irvington Detective Shaun Green and a man named Joseph DeMarco whose relationship to Etienne, Green or Irvington is not disclosed.
Etienne claimed that all the charges brought against him were "terminated favorably" to him.
None of the Etienne's allegations have been proven or disproven in court. Settlement agreements typically state that payment does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing by any of the defendants.
All that is known for sure is that Irvington or its insurer, for whatever reason, decided that it would rather pay Etienne $10,000 than take the matter to trial.