NYC to pay $3 million to settle Kalief Browder lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City will pay $3 million to the estate of a young man whose long detention in solitary confinement and subsequent suicide made him a symbol of a broken criminal justice system.

City law department officials said they hope Thursday’s settlement in the case of Kalief Browder brings “some measure of closure” to his family.

Browder was 16 when he was arrested and accused of stealing a man’s backpack in 2010. He spent three years in jail awaiting trial, about half that time in solitary confinement.

Prosecutors eventually dropped the charge. Browder was freed, but he killed himself at age 22 in 2015.

His story led to reforms at the city’s jails and at federal prisons nationwide.

Sanford Rubenstein, a lawyer for Browder’s estate, called the settlement “fair and reasonable.”