Settlement for Man Vindicated by Enthusiasm
After Larry David helped make it right, the city of Los Angeles is helping to make it better.
The Los Angeles City Council agreed Wednesday to pay a $320,000 settlement to Juan Catalan, who spent five months behind bars as a murder suspect before being exonerated when his attorney spotted him in a Curb Your Enthusiasm outtake.
Catalan had protested that he couldn't be responsible for the May 12, 2003 murder of 16-year-old Martha Puebla, who was gunned down in front of her San Fernando Valley home, because, at the time of her death, he was enjoying a Dodgers game with his six-year-old daughter and some friends.
Police linked him to the crime because Puebla had testified in a murder case in which Catalan's brother, Mario, was a codefendant. Catalan was arrested a month after the slaying and booked on suspicion of murder in what could have been a death-penalty case due to special circumstances.
Defense lawyer Todd Melnik sifted through Dodger Fan Cam footage hoping to locate his client, but he didn't hit the jackpot until he learned that HBO had been filming an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm at Dodger Stadium—the one in which Larry picks up a prostitute on his way to a game so that he can drive in the carpool lane.
Brilliant.
Anyway, Melnik started watching everything the Curb crew had shot that day, eventually spotting Catalan sitting in the background, munching on a hotdog.
Armed with time-coded footage proving that Catalan was 20 miles away when Puebla was killed and a record of a cell phone call Catalan made to his girlfriend during the game, Melnik presented his case before a judge.
Catalan was cleared and released in January 2004.
Wednesday's payday was in response to the police misconduct lawsuit the now-28-year-old machinist filed two years ago charging the LAPD with, among other things, false imprisonment.
"There he was in the outtakes," attorney Gary Casselman, who was handling Catalan's civil suit, told the Los Angeles Times. "He's glad it's over. It's terrible to be in jail and he thought he would never see his daughters again."
Another person is now being prosecuted for Puebla's murder, Casselman said.
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