By Bobby Kerlik
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
PITTSBURGH, Pa. -- Some of the biggest winners of a $3 million settlement involving Allegheny County Jail inmates who were wrongly strip-searched could be their children, if court officials have their way.
Common Pleas Judge Kathryn Hens-Greco, administrative judge of the county courts’ family division, last week ordered the freezing of any settlement payments to former inmates who are overdue on child support.
“The bottom line is that we’re talking about money going to kids who haven’t had money in a while,” said Patrick Quinn, administrator of the adult section of family court. “There’s no question that this is considered income.”
Elmer Robert Keach III, an attorney from Albany, N.Y., who represents the plaintiffs, said he was aware of the family court’s freeze order.
“If it’s legally proper, we will obviously honor the court’s order,” Keach said. “But we need to research it further because we have a lot of concerns about this procedure being employed against our class members.”
Jay Blechman, a family court attorney and former president of the Allegheny County Bar Association, said child-support law gives the court broad power to garnish income.
“I don’t see why these funds would be treated any differently (than any other income),” said Blechman, who is not involved in the case. “This would probably be fair game.”
The county in September agreed to pay $3 million to settle the class-action lawsuit filed in federal court by people who were strip-searched upon being jailed for minor offenses.
More than 12,000 people could be eligible, but only about 2,000 filed claims as of the beginning of this month. The deadline to file claims is Thursday.
Under the proposed settlement, attorneys would get about $1 million and the firm processing the claims would get $265,000 -- leaving the remainder for plaintiffs. That means each class member could get about $650, depending on the total number of claims filed by the deadline.
Quinn said about 2,000 potential members of the class were delinquent on child-support payments. He did not know how many of those people had filed claims.
The lawsuit began when Michael Rey, 48, of Mt. Washington, who was jailed for not paying child support, sued in 2006.
The plaintiffs claimed the jail’s past policy of strip-searching everyone violated the constitutional rights of people being jailed on minor offenses when jail officials didn’t have reason to suspect they were hiding contraband in their clothes or body cavities.
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