‘Humiliated’ Worker Wins Settlement : Suit: Immigrant seeking work as day laborer outside a market was abducted by store employees. Case was linked to rising racial tensions.

The worst of it all, Candido Gayosso Salas now says, was losing his pride, his honor.

It was snatched away by the men who abducted him from the parking lot of a Carlsbad market two years ago, he says.

They handcuffed him and bound him with duct tape and set him free only after crowning him with a paper sack on which someone had scrawled a smiling clown’s face, and the phrase “no mas aqui, “ or “no more here,” clumsy Spanish intended to mean “get out.”

And his pride, his honor, Salas says, is something they can never return.

But on Wednesday, the former migrant laborer secured justice of a sort--a cash settlement in a civil suit against three men, including the owner of the Country Store, where the January, 1990, abduction took place.

Salas, 28, who has moved back to his home near Mexico City, took a 55-hour bus ride to appear in federal court Thursday. He acknowledged that the agreement--in an amount kept secret by court order--has eased some bitterness. “I feel fine,” he said in Spanish.

The civil settlement closes a chapter in the case that many say heightened the growing tension between north San Diego County’s Anglo middle class and the hundreds of migrant laborers who work in nearby fields.

Marco Lopez, Salas’ attorney, said he thinks the decision may help to cool off racial tensions and stem what some have called a rise of vigilantism against migrant workers.

“You’re talking to someone who believes that people’s minds and attitudes can change,” Lopez said. “In any event, I think both sides learned a lesson to be more careful.”

The resolution comes two years after the brisk morning when Salas was grabbed by two store workers as he stood in the parking lot soliciting day labor with other workers.

With the help of store butcher Bill Zimmerman, Randy Alfred Ryberg dragged Salas behind the store and handcuffed him to a railing for more than two hours, even after store owner Rick Ryberg saw him.

During a criminal trial, both Zimmerman and Randy Ryberg, a stocky 6-foot-6 man who said his job was to “keep the Mexicans away” from the store, expressed resentment over the many migrant workers waiting for work there. Some shoplifted from the store, the men said.

Randy Ryberg was convicted of misdemeanor false imprisonment but acquitted on a felony count of using force. Zimmerman was acquitted of the same charges. Rick Ryberg was arrested but not charged.

Initially, the FBI said it was looking into filing civil rights violations charges against Zimmerman and Randy Ryberg, but none were filed.

Neither of the Rybergs could be reached for comment Thursday. Contacted at the Country Store, Zimmerman refused to discuss the settlement.

For Salas, worse than the fear of being harmed were insults from fellow farm workers. In the rural camps he shared with them, he became known as La Gallinazo--the chicken, for the large fiberglass rooster atop the store. Workers yelled his nickname constantly and laughed. “It hurt me,” he said.

While he now makes less than $50 a week as a plumber’s assistant, he does not miss the fields of North San Diego County, except for a few friends.

He figures he might reopen the taco shop he once ran. Or take another stab at touring rented movies around impoverished mountain towns.

“I just prefer to live peacefully with my family,” he said. “It’s something I couldn’t do here.”