Kansas to pay $67,000 to settles suit over 2011 traffic stop

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has agreed to settle for roughly $67,000 a 5-year-old lawsuit by a man who said he was illegally stopped and detained by a state trooper.

Peter Vasquez told the Topeka Capital-Journal (http://bit.ly/2sLP2kd ) he’s happy his litigation over the December 2011 stop is ending.

“It’s about accountability,” he told the newspaper.

Vasquez says he was stopped by a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper in December 2011 in Wabaunsee County and was issued a warning but refused the trooper’s request to have his vehicle searched after Vasquez insisted there were no drugs in it.

Court documents show that Vasquez, who was driving a vehicle registered in Colorado, was detained on suspicion of criminal activity, though a search of his vehicle found nothing illegal.

Vasquez sued in February 2012, alleging he was searched and detained without reasonable suspicion. A federal appeals court last year overturned a lower court’s decision to dismiss the case. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the state’s request to hear the matter.

A spokesman for the Kansas attorney general’s office declined to discuss the case Wednesday.

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Information from: The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal, http://www.cjonline.com