SEARCH SUIT ENDS IN DEAL LOCAL DEPUTY INVOLVED IN CASE.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PALMDALE - A Los Angeles County panel has agreed to pay $60,000 to a woman who says she was fondled by a Palmdale sheriff's deputy during a search after he stopped her vehicle for an alleged traffic violation.

County attorneys recommended the settlement because one of the deputies involved in R.J. Booker's arrest later pleaded no contest to obstruction of justice for filing a false police report taking credit for what another deputy had done in the incident, officials said.

``It is very likely that Ms. Booker will be much more credible to a jury than the deputies because the jury would be allowed to consider the fact that her criminal conviction was set aside due to a false-arrest report,'' Deputy County Counsel Elizabeth Miller said in a memo.

The settlement was approved Wednesday by the county's Contract Cities Liability Trust Fund Claims Board, which handles financial claims made against deputies working in cities like Palmdale, Santa Clarita and Lancaster that have Sheriff's Department contracts.

Booker was never charged with any crime after the March 27, 2001, arrest, according to District Attorney's Office records. She has filed a suit in federal court against Los Angeles County. The lawsuit will be dropped as the result of the settlement, officials said.

The claims board memo names neither of the deputies. But District Attorney's Office records show Deputy Scott Naiman, 29, was sentenced last April to eight days in jail, fined $250, placed on 12 months' probation and ordered to perform 250 hours of community service work.

Naiman no longer is assigned to the Palmdale sheriff's station, but Assistant County Counsel Kevin C. Brazile said he could not comment on the status of either deputy involved in the incident.

District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Jane Robison said Booker's vehicle had been stopped March 27, 2001, by a deputy who later determined she was driving on a suspended license and said he found drugs on her after a search.

The deputy told Naiman, a trainee, to drive the woman to jail and to book her into custody, Robison said. But after doing that, Naiman wrote up a police report as if he were the one who had arrested and searched Booker, not the other deputy, Robison said.

Booker's attorney, Joseph H. Low IV, said the deputy who stopped his client's car had no valid reason to stop it or to search her. The lawsuit claims the deputy put his hand down the woman's pants and also fondled her breasts, Low said.

``She was pulled over illegally and stopped in violation of her Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures,'' Low said.

After her arrest, Low said, Booker was left unbelted in the patrol car's back seat as the second deputy engaged in what Low called ``Dukes of Hazzard'' driving, which jostled her around and aggravated an old knee injury. She is awaiting surgery, Low said.

The deputy also endangered Booker by driving her to another crime scene where deputies were confronting individuals in another car, before taking her to jail, Low said.

But Low said he was impressed with the District Attorney's Office, Sheriff's Department and county attorneys' investigation into the incident.

``They did it right this time,'' Low said.