City to pay man for wrongful arrest

Tue., June 3, 2008

By Jonathan Brunt jonathanb@spokesman.com (509) 459-5442

The city of Spokane will pay $50,000 to a man who was wrongly arrested and spent a day in jail on a charge of cyber stalking last year.

Spokane police arrested Dean Dunn on Feb. 14, 2007 and accused him of using MySpace.com to threaten a family living on East Hoffman Avenue.

Soon after the arrest, police determined that Dunn was not responsible for the violent messages to the family, whom Dunn had never met, according to a previous Spokesman-Review article. A 13-year-old girl who lived in the home on East Hoffman ultimately was arrested for making the threats.

The Spokane City Council voted 6-0 on Monday to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Dunn and his wife, Patricia Dunn, last year. Council President Joe Shogan was absent at Monday’s meeting.

About a week after Dunn was first accused of the crime, Spokane police publicly took responsibility. A police spokesman said a detective “used the wrong piece of information from MySpace to identify” the person responsible.

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