WOMAN WINS $450,000 FOR AIRPORT STRIP-SEARCH

SAN FRANCISCO-A woman who was stopped by customs agents at San Francisco
International Airport,held for 22 hours, strip-searched and forced to take
repeated doses of a laxative in a fruitless search for drugs was awarded
$450,000 by a federal jury Tuesday.

Lawyers for Amanda Buritica of Port Chester, N.Y., argued that agents had
no reason to suspect her of being a drug courier, intensified their search
when they found no evidence and ignored the fact she was already suffering
from diarrhea. Agents found anti-diarrhea medicine in their initial search.

A government lawyer countered that agents had several reasons for
suspicion: Buritica was a woman in her 50s, traveling alone, on a Singapore
Airlines flight from Hong Kong - a "high risk flight" from a city that is a
common source of drugs - wore loose clothing, carried no mementos from her
trip and was unresponsive to questions.

But the U.S. District Court jury found the search unreasonable and awarded
$225,000 in damages against each of two customs agents involved in the
search. The government usually pays such damages against its employees,
although Assistant U.S. Attorney Gail Killefer said no decision has been
made yet.

Jurors also ordered punitive damages of $1,000 for malicious conduct
against John Petrin, chief customs inspector at the airport, who was also
involved in a 1989 case before the same judge in which a body-cavity search
of a passenger was ruled illegal.