Local News in Brief : Custody Case Settlement
A man acquitted in 1985 of stealing his two daughters in a custody dispute has reached an out-of-court settlement with his ex-wife, who had filed a $1.5-million civil suit against him.
Ronald Whitelaw, who took the girls from their mother’s Valencia home in April, 1978, said that the girls’ mother, Faith Canutt, had agreed to a $35,000 settlement.
The girls, Alisa, 16, and Kristin, 13, live with Whitelaw and his second wife, Sandy Melhorn Whitelaw, on a ranch near Lebanon, Ore.
The agreement ends a long, highly publicized legal battle that included criminal charges, a custody fight and the civil suit.
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