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New York may pay millions to people illegally strip searched

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From CNN Producers Rose Arce and Shannon Troetel

NEW YORK (CNN) -- New York City is considering a proposal to pay up to $50 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of tens of thousands of people illegally strip-searched after being arrested for minor offenses.

Richard Emery, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he believes the city will agree to pay damages of between $250 and $22,500 to as many as 50,000 people who were arrested and strip-searched during 10 months in 1996 and 1997. The searches happened 10 years after a federal court barred strip-searches of people accused of minor offenses.

If the city ultimately agrees to the settlement it would be one of the largest civil rights settlements against any city in U.S. history.

Mayor Rudy Guiliani said corrections officials were unaware that the 1986 federal ruling applied to them and stopped the practice when questions arose.

But the mayor defiantly insisted that the strip searches were appropriate anyway.

"If people aren't searched effectively and they're all being held for arraignment and one person pulls out a razor blade and starts killing people then you'll find out that there's another side to this," Guiliani told reporters Wednesday.

Bernard Kerik, the deputy of the Department of Corrections at the time, said abandoning strip-searches had endangered law enforcement personnel.

"The courts have determined it's inappropriate," acknowledged Kerik, who is now the city's police commissioner.

"Personally, I would tend to disagree and say anybody that you take off the streets of the city and you're going to put those people in a confined and secluded area with other people that have been arrested for crimes, they should be strip-searched for the safety of the people that's there."

At a news conference Wednesday, several plaintiffs called the searches humiliating and unnecessary.

Vivian William's was arrested for selling sneakers on the street in 1997.

"I had two officers facing me and telling me to take off my clothes. I did what they asked ..." she said. "It was bad enough I was told to strip, but I was told to lift up my breast, to turn, to lift up legs, show my private parts. It was extremely demeaning. And it was just a horrific act."

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