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Attorney's claim against Las Vegas police officer settled
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Metropolitan Police Department officials have reached a tentative settlement with a criminal defense lawyer who claims a Las Vegas police officer violated her civil rights three years ago.
According to federal court records, attorney Kristina Wildeveld stands to receive $125,000 if the Metropolitan Police Committee on Fiscal Affairs approves the agreement at its Monday meeting. If approved, the department will submit a check to Wildeveld within two weeks.
Wildeveld sued the department and officer Richard Dean Goslar in June 2010. She was represented by attorneys Cal Potter III and John Funk.
According to the complaint, Wildeveld was on her way to court when Goslar, who was on a motorcycle, stopped her vehicle outside the Regional Justice Center on Oct. 13, 2008.
Goslar believed Wildeveld was going to make a U-turn at Clark and Third streets but stopped her before she made the turn, according to the document. The lawsuit claims he then confronted Wildeveld, grabbed her and injured her shoulder.
"Officer Goslar issued the plaintiff a citation knowing full well that she had not committed a traffic offense and made the plaintiff go to trial on a matter because he did not like her attitude," the lawsuit alleges. "Ultimately the citation was dismissed in the plaintiff's favor."
The document claims Wildeveld's shoulder injury required medical treatment "in excess" of $10,000. She "had not physically resisted or assaulted the defendant in any way, and the force used against her was unnecessary, unreasonable and excessive," according to the lawsuit.
Wildeveld's complaint further alleges that Goslar had no probable cause for citing her "and was outside of his jurisdictional boundaries." She sought more than $1 million in damages.
According to the defendants' answer to Wildeveld's complaint, "The arrest and imprisonment of the plaintiff, if any, was completely justified under the circumstances alleged and was perfected pursuant to probable cause and reasonable cause in believing the plaintiff had committed a criminal act."
The document also claims officers used a "reasonable degree of force" and that any damage suffered by Wildeveld "was a direct and proximate result of her own misconduct and actions."
Wildeveld has handled multiple murder cases over the years. In 2009, she represented the mother of a 3-year-old boy who was attacked by a python that escaped from its cage in the family's apartment. The boy survived, but the parents faced child abuse charges.
According to the State Bar of Nevada website, Wildeveld has been licensed to practice law in Nevada since 1996.
Contact reporter Carri Geer Thevenot at cgeer@reviewjournal.com or 702-384-8710.
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She did in fact make an illegal u-turn, but when she was found guilty, the judge was asked to amend it to an attempted illegal u-turn. When the attempted illegal u-turn guilty verdict was appealed it was then dismissed citing no such charge exists. She refused to hand over her registration and insurance, at which point one tends to get arrested.
Here..before your brain starts to hurt....Hypocrite..."A person who indulges in hypocrisy" Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that one does not actually have.
@Commonsense....And your last post does absolutely nothing to change the fact the burden of proof in the civil case would have not been placed on the shoulders of Metro to prove wrong doing by the attorney. Sad that you are so fragile that you get so upset when your errors are pointed out to you. Since I commented on what you said, that can't be considered a "personal attack," which is commonly defined as, "Referring to an individual's character, appearance, or private life, esp. in a hostile or critical way." An example of that would be "Get a grip and get some counseling, your glory days at bghs are over." Do you know what a person is called when they cry about the very actions there are guilty of?
Considering this article is completely reporting the side of the attorney who was suing the department I can assume it was the attorney who released the one sided events that happened that day. Since you seem to be keeping track of every article I have ever commented on it seems that you have nothing better to do with your life. Twist the comments all you want, use quotes all you want, you embarrass yourself with your pointless comments and personal attacks on not just me but other commenters out there. Use spell check too, it might help more than your thesaurus. I'm done with you.
Once again you embarrass yourself with your complete lack of command of the English Language and the written word. Yes, this was a a lawsuit against the department, but you clearly were unaware of that when you posted, "Cheaper to settle than go to court and prove she was doing something wrong," because as the defendants here they were under no obligation to prove she "did anything wrong." They just had to prove the officer had NOT done anything wrong. They only time Metro had to "prove" anything was at a criminal trial, so that was the only proceeding your post could have been referring to. I also love, that you are always posting how you have faith enough to trust a jury's decisions when it comes to handing out the death penalty, but not enough faith for them to make the right decisions when it comes to protecting out Constitutional rights.
bghs1986, clueless as usual, this wasn't a misdemeanor traffic ticket, it was a lawsuit against the department because of the ticket she received and an alleged "assualt". They take this to trial and it'll cost a few hundred thousand and some bleeding heart, metro hating jury will give her the max. Get a grip and get some counseling, your glory days at bghs are over, this is real life.
@CommonSenseLV..."Cheaper to settle than go to court and prove she was doing something wrong." So with all that "Common Sense," you think that it costs more that $125,000 to prosecute a simple misdemeanor traffic ticket? That is completely ridiculous. Now we can add Richard Dean Goslar to the growing list of dishonest and/or violent cops that get to keep collecting taxpayer dollars. Officer Golsar please join Doug Gillespie, Bryan Yant, David Goris, Steven Radmanovich, Brad Gallup, Jake Grunwald Greg Theobald, Bob Rogers, Jerry "Bob" Montes, Steven Leyba, Mark Mills, Dave Denton, Rick Klein, Bob Lewis, Jim Dixon, Andrew Ubbens, Jared Wicks, Peter Hervoyavich and Derek Colling in the Metro Hall of shame.
This is chump change compared to the potential awards in the Federal Civil Rights cases pending against Yant, Mosher, Collings, et al. Those possible damages are in excess of 26 MILLION!!!!. I wouldn't count on those being settled out of court either.
Cheaper to settle than go to court and prove she was doing something wrong. All the cop haters need to get a life and pay your tickets. Don't get mad because you get caught. Since we don't know all the facts of the case I guess it's ok for everyone to jump to the conclusion that the officer was in the wrong. Yeah don't blame the lawyer after all she does make more money than everyone on this page.
unlike most cases at least she wasnt shot