>Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2000 23:40:16 -0500 (CDT)
>From: Michael Novick <part2001@usa.net>
>
>500-plus inmates from Attica uprising seek compensation
>
>ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) More than 500 inmates caught in the deadly 1971 Attica
>uprising have come forward to seek a share of the $8 million in
>compensation offered by New York state.
>
>The legal deadline ran out Friday for claims by inmates who maintain they
>were tortured, beaten and denied medical treatment in the aftermath of the
>revolt and the bloody efforts by authorities to put it down.
>
>State police launched an all-out assault on the maximum-security Attica
>Correctional Facility near Buffalo on Sept. 13, 1971, the fifth day of the
>uprising. In all, 32 inmates and 11 guards died, most of them killed during
>the raid, and hundreds more were wounded.
>
>The U.S. District Court here said 518 claims had been filed by Friday
>afternoon but more mailed with Friday postmarks were expected to filter in.
>''My estimate is, when the dust settles, it will be over 550,'' said
>Elizabeth Fink, the chief lawyer for the former inmates.
>
>Of the 1,281 inmates who were in prison yard ''D'' when police stormed the
>prison, hundreds have since died. By year's end, the judge will divide the
>money between the claimants most of them former inmates in their 50s or
>older.
>
>Dozens of former inmates testified in the federal court about their
>harrowing experiences in the hours after the prison was recaptured. Inmates
>were forced to run naked through a gantlet of law enforcement officers who
>hit them with clubs and nightsticks.
>
>In agreeing to settle, the state admitted no wrongdoing and agreed to pay
>the inmates $8 million and their lawyers $4 million in legal fees and
>costs. The original class-action lawsuit in 1974 sought $100 million in
>damages.
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