PROTEST-BUST LAWSUITS COULD $OCK US BIG By DAREH GREGORIAN and LAURA ITALIANO
The city faces millions of dollars in lawsuits from hundreds of the 1,827 people arrested during convention protests, experts said yesterday.
Those likely to sue include innocent people swept up in mass-protest arrests, and more than 500 who were held longer than the legally mandated 24 hours before being released or brought before a judge.
"There were a lot of bad arrests that I think would constitute civil-rights violations," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Civil-rights lawyer Ron Kuby said, "The city is facing potentially tens of millions of dollars in liability."
That's above and beyond the hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines the city already faces when a Manhattan Supreme Court judge reviews the custody crunch at a hearing next week.
Lawyers for the city and the protesters will butt heads before Justice John Cataldo, who on Thursday held the city in contempt for failing to obey his order to process those arrested in a timely manner. The judge slammed the city for taking as long as 66 hours to process some, and at 6 p.m. Thursday ordered that those illegally held be immediately released.
The city has insisted it did its best processing historic numbers of arrests, and is expected to aggressively fight both the fines and the lawsuits.