OAKLAND — The city of Oakland is expected to pay $2 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by 16 Asian American women who said they were pulled over for no reason by a police officer who then groped or sexually harassed them.
The city has already paid $190,000 to two other women to settle claims involving former Officer Richard Valerga, who resigned from the Police Department in 2005 and was sentenced to six months in jail after pleading no contest to false imprisonment and civil rights violations, all misdemeanors.
City Attorney John Russo recommended that the city approve the latest payout to avoid a potential loss at trial.
"I found Valerga's actions deplorable, particularly given the fact that here was a person who seemed to target immigrants, people who just came to this country to avoid oppression," said attorney Jim Chanin, who along with lawyer John Burris represented the plaintiffs.
City officials have said the Police Department's internal affairs division responded quickly when it learned of the allegations against Valerga. But Chanin said Valerga's sentence in the criminal case was "woefully inadequate."
The women said Valerga pulled them over in 2004 or 2005 in the Fruitvale district and near Lake Merritt and asked them to sit in the front seat of his patrol car. Valerga would then touch or sexually harass them, the suit said.
Valerga told one woman to call his cell phone from her phone so he could save her number, the suit said. He took her picture with his cell phone – after asking her to open the front of her sweater – and "told her words to the effect that she was pretty," the suit said. He let her go without a ticket when another patrol car pulled up, the suit said.
Valerga asked another woman if she was married, told her she had soft hands and asked for her phone number, all while the woman's two children were left alone in her car, the suit said.
He kissed a third plaintiff on the lips twice against her will, called her the next day and "said that he wanted to take her out for lunch," which she declined, the suit said.
The lawsuit is one of two that Oakland officials said Thursday that they were prepared to settle. In the other, the city is poised to pay $1.2 million to former police Lt. Janeith Glenn-Davis, who was denied a promotion to captain in 2001 after she became pregnant.
City officials denied discriminating and said Glenn-Davis had been the victim of a temporary freeze on promotions.
A federal jury awarded her $2 million in 2006, but U.S. District Judge Susan Illston cut the figure last year to $550,000. The settlement is a compromise that would avoid further attorney's fees, Russo said.
Glenn-Davis left the department in October 2002 to become police chief at Cal State East Bay.
