JURY BACKS DAMAGES OVER STRIP SEARCH

Chicago - An advisory-only federal jury recommended $129,750 in damages
Tuesday for a Wisconsin hairdresser who was subjected to a humiliating
airport strip search by customs agents looking for drugs.

"Thank God, they listened," 36-year-old Kathryn Kaniff of Washington Island
told reporters after the jurors delivered a verdict in which they found
that agents had engaged in "intentional infliction of emotional distress."

The verdict is advisory only. U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer will
render the decision in the case at a later date. Under law, juries are not
allowed to make the final decision in personal-injury cases against the
federal government.

But Pallmeyer said she would "take the jury's decision very seriously." The
jurors recommended $112,625 for pain and suffering and $17,125 for Kaniff's
psychiatric costs as a result of the four-hour ordeal that unfolded at
O'Hare International Airport in December 1997.

Kaniff says she suffers post-traumatic distress syndrome as a result of the
strip search that took place when she arrived at O'Hare from a holiday in
Jamaica.

The fact that the jury was advisory only had not been publicized and came
as a surprise to many reporters covering the case. A federal government
attorney, Jonathan Haile, expressed concern that the unusual arrangement
might be misunderstood by the public and suggested to Pallmeyer that she
might seal the verdict until she decides the case.

But Pallmeyer said the public would understand if she explained it
carefully from the bench.

Kaniff was relieved by the verdict. "They heard it for what it was," she
said. "They saw exactly what it was."

Customs officials say the agents were merely doing their job and were
within their rights to conduct the search because they had a "reasonable
suspicion" that Kaniff might be carrying heroin or cocaine. No drugs were
found.