5 GAIN SETTLEMENTS FOR F.B.I. ACTS IN 70'S

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303420003-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 16, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303420003-8
5 CAIN SETTLEIlE4TS
FOR F.B.I. ACTS IN S
Justice Dept to Pay Each $10,000
- in Agents'-Violations of Rights
The Justice Department has. agreed to
pay five persons $10,000 each for violation
of their constitutional rights because of
illegal Federal Bureau of Investigation
wiretaps, burglaries or mail openings in
the early 1970's,. civil liberties-lawyers
said yesterday.
The -lawyers said th6 agreement; had
been zieached at the.end of President
Jimmy Carter's term and approved-by
the Reagan Administration. The~:pay
ments, which have not-been sent,. are_ ire.
settlement of lawsuits begun in Federal
District Court in Manhattan in 1977.
The agreement' was-'confirmed:last
night by Patricia N. Hynes; executive
assistant United States attorney for? the
Southern District.
The five learned about the surveillance
when the. Justice Department indicted
John J. 'Kearney,. former head of the
F.B.L's-'internal security unit'in New
York. The indictment was dropped in 1978
.on the ground that Mr. Kearney's superi-
ors had sanctioned his activities while he
was seeking information on Weather Un-
derground fugitives.
The five persons involved in the settle-.
meet were not themselves wanted by the
Government, but were watched because
NEW YORK TIMES
16 1,LARCH 1981
of possible associations with the fugi- lost his police-reporter job at The Daily _
tives. News when he invoked First Amendment'
They are Sara Blackburn and Lewis guarantees in 1956 to refuse to answer t
Cole, freelance writers, represented by Senate Internal Security Subcommittee
the New York Civil Liberties Union questions about communism. He went t
through two trials for contempt of Con-
th
h L
F
l
roug
eon
rt man, a Hofstra Schoo
of Law professor, and Steven Shapiro,
staff counsel..;
press on which lower-court convictions
were reversed. Recently he has been ac-
The others are William A:. Price, 'a for-
mer reporter for The Daily News of New
York; Deborah Offner, an actress, and
Johanna Lawrenson, represented by.the
National Emergency Civil Liberties
Committee with Michael B. Standard and
!Gordon Johnson as lawyers. Miss La-
wrenson has been a companion for the
last four years of Abbie Hoffman, a 1960's
counterculture leader, who surrendered
in September as a fugitive on drug
charges. He pleaded guilty to a reduced
charge and is awaiting sentencing. -
Mr-- Shapiro said the agreement was
"one of the largest, if not the largest set-
tlement in cases of this sort of constitu
tional violations by government, not in-
volving definable injury."
Mr. Friedman said that Mrs. Black-
burn and Mr. Cole had their telephones
tapped for two weeks and that their resi-
dences were robbed by Federal agents.
Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, he
said, minimum damages for illegal wire-
taps would be $100 a day.
Mr. Standard said Mr. Price's tele-
phone and a public telephone near Mr._
Price's home had been tapped for five
weeks. Miss Offner's mail was opened on
four occasions, and Miss Lawrenson's
phones were tapped more than four years
in Manhattan and in upstate Fineview.
Mrs. Blackburn, a short-story writer
and book reviewer, once contributed
money to the Black Panthers. Mr. Cole
was a leader of the Columbia University
Students for a Democratic Society in 1968
and 1969 disorders.
Mr. Price, a World War II Navy pi got,
Among other suits over Federal sur-
veillance, Morton H. Halperin, formerly
of the National Security Council, was
awarded $1 nominal damages against
former President Richard M. Nixon in
Federal Court here in 1977 for illegal
wiretaps from 1969 to 1971 during a news-
leak hunt. A Justice Department appeal
claiming absolute immunity for Mr.
Nixon and top advisers was argued in the
United States Supreme Court last Decem-
ber. W
Corli-sa' Lamont, civil liberties advo- i
cate, w?s awar 32, comoensanon
f xyn Federal ourt fn 19~ Central Intelligence Agency opening of
two love letters is wife.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303420003-8