Gallatin County pays for mistake

BOZEMAN (AP)  A Three Forks man who was mistakenly tagged with a sex crime conviction will receive $40,000 under a settlement with Gallatin County. Cody Johnston and his family sued the county and the weekly newspaper in Belgrade after his traffic ticket for a truck weight violation appeared in court records and the newspaper as a felony sex crime conviction instead.

Johnston, 24, was identified as having been found guilty of felony deviate sexual conduct in May 1997. In fact, he had been issued a $195 ticket for having an overweight commercial truck.

Johnston, his parents and sister sued in 1998, arguing the mistake had caused extreme embarrassment. The deviate sex act statute alleges sexual contact between two persons of the same sex, or a sex act with an animal.

Under the settlement, Johnstons parents and sister also will receive about $2,000 from the county.

Gallatin County Attorney Marty Lambert said the countys insurance carrier, St. Paul Insurance Co., will likely pay the bill. He declined to discuss the settlement further.

Mark Guenther, the Johnstons attorney, said the family is happy to have the dispute resolved.

It was an unfortunate mistake that caused needless embarrassment to Cody and his family, Guenther said.

Officials say the mistake occurred because of a computer glitch in the countys Justice Court. A clerk entered a specific number to record the traffic offense, but the computer did not recognize the numerical code and apparently assigned a different one.

The Belgrade newspaper, the Independent Press, printed the information contained in the court records. It later ran a correction.

The Johnstons argued the paper should have verified the information before publishing.

State District Judge Mike Salvagni dismissed the Independent Press from the lawsuit earlier, ruling the public had a right to expect information in government records to be correct.

http://www.billingsgazette.com/region/20000906_r3sex.html

-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), September 07, 2000