The city agreed to an $18 million settlement with about 1,800 protesters and others who said they were falsely arrested and had their First Amendment rights violated during protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention in Manhattan, it was announced Wednesday..
Pending a federal judge’s approval, the plaintiffs will share $10.3 million and their attorneys will get $7.6 million. Many of those arrested were held for days at an old bus depot at Pier 57, dubbed "Guantanamo on the Hudson" for alleged unsanitary conditions.
The U.S. District Court later found that no probable cause existed for many of the arrests. A handful of cases have yet to be resolved. Four plaintiffs did not accept the settlement and will go to trial.
