TALLAHASSEE SETTLES SUIT OVER RACHEL HOFFMAN'S DEATH

TALLAHASSEE -- Tallahassee city commissioners approved a $2.6 million
settlement Friday in the wrongful-death suit of a police informant
who was fatally shot during a 2008 drug sting.

The parents of Rachel Hoffman, 23, sued after her death, claiming
police were negligent in setting up the Florida State graduate as an
undercover informant after she was caught with marijuana and pills
without a prescription.

Jury selection for the lawsuit began this week and the trial was
scheduled to begin Monday.

After a closed door session with attorneys Friday, commissioners
voted 3-2 to approve the settlement, the first $200,000 of which will
be paid by the city in the next few weeks, City Attorney Jim English said.

The rest will be paid after the Florida Legislature passes what is
known as a "claims bill," which could take years.

Nonetheless, Irv Hoffman, Rachel's father, said he was "just grateful
for this part of it to be over."

Rachel Hoffman was shot five times after police lost track of her
during a purported drug deal in a rural area north of Tallahassee.
Her body was found 36 hours later in a roadside ditch in Taylor
County, roughly 50 miles away.

Deneilo Bradshaw, 26, from St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and
his stepbrother-in-law Andrea Green, 29, are serving life sentences
for Hoffman's murder.

Hoffman, of Safety Harbor, was working for police in a "buy-bust"
operation and had been sent alone with $13,000 in marked bills to buy
Ecstasy, cocaine and a gun, according to records. Instead, the men
killed her and stole her car, a credit card and the marked money.

Prosecutors said Bradshaw drove Hoffman's Volvo with her body in it
to Taylor County, where he dumped it in the ditch. He later cleaned
the inside of the car with bleach and went with Green to Orlando,
where they bought jewelry and clothes with some of the marked money.

After her death, the Florida Legislature passed "Rachel's Law,"
requiring police to adopt policies to protect informants. The measure
also requires special training for investigators who work with
informants, makes police tell informants they cannot be promised
reduced sentences and allows them to talk with a lawyer before doing anything.

Tallahassee police had fired the investigator who was supervising
Hoffman, though they later reinstated him. A Tallahassee grand jury
that had investigated Hoffman's death found police negligent in
sending her out by herself and letting her out of their sight.

English said the money for the settlement would come from the city's
risk management fund.

Usually, governments cannot be sued under the legal principle of
sovereign immunity. Florida, however, has a limited waiver that
allows compensation of up to $200,000 per person. Any payment beyond
that requires passage of a claims bill, and most have to be filed for
years before lawmakers will consider them.