The City of New York has settled with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement over the destruction of the OWS Library. The city will pay the OWS Library Working Group $47,000 and pay $186,350 in attorney fees for the movement as well.
Read the complete settlement in the Scribd file embedded below–are you surprised?
The Occupy Wall Street movement and OWS librarians sued New York City in federal court over the destruction of the Occupy Wall Street Library during a late-night raid on Zuccotti Park. According to the lawsuit, the city confiscated 3,600 books on November 15, 2011, but the city only returned 1,003 of the books.
MobyLives wrote more about the court case. Here’s an excerpt from the original lawsuit:
We believe that the raid and its aftermath violated our First-Amendment rights to free expression, Fourth-Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure, and Fourteenth-Amendment rights to due process, as well as the laws of the City of New York regarding the vouchsafing of seized property. We are demanding compensatory damages for the lost/destroyed books and equipment, which we have estimated at at least $47,000. In addition, because we believe the seizure and destruction of the books went beyond negligence to constitute a reckless and callous indifference to our constitutional rights, we are demanding punitive damages of at least $1,000.
Occupy Wall St. v. City of New York Settlement by nicholasjpinto