Victim of Botched Raid to Get $2.75 Million

The U.S. government agreed Wednesday to pay $2.75 million to a business executive who was shot and seriously wounded when federal drug agents stormed his suburban house in a botched pre-dawn raid based on a false tip from an informant.

The settlement before a federal judge closes an extraordinary case in which the U.S. attorney’s office took the unusual step of admitting liability in the lawsuit by Donald Carlson, 43, a computer company executive from Poway.

“This resolution adequately compensates Mr. Carlson for his injuries and the horror he suffered while it protects the taxpayer from the risks of additional litigation,” said Alan D. Bersin, the U.S. attorney in San Diego. Bersin inherited the case when he was appointed last year.

The award is the highest in recent memory in a lawsuit against federal law enforcement nationwide and is comparable to monetary settlements of recent misconduct cases in Southern California involving local police, according to lawyers on both sides.

Although prosecutors admitted liability, they blame the informant, Ronnie Edmond, who was convicted Nov. 30 on charges of making false statements to federal agents in the 1992 incident.

Described by Bersin as a sophisticated con man, Edmond had worked with police in Florida before becoming an informant for Operation Alliance, a multi-agency task force based at the U.S.-Mexico border. Edmond gave U.S. Customs Service agents a wild and detailed account of international drug trafficking and purported corruption, claiming that a South American cartel was using Carlson’s house to store several tons of cocaine.

On Aug. 26, 1992, agents executed a search warrant based on that tip--although colleagues had raised serious questions about Edmond’s credibility and at one point dismissed him as an informant.

When the raiding team battered down his door, Carlson--thinking he was being attacked by criminals--armed himself with a pistol and fired, wounding an agent slightly. The ensuing gunfire hit Carlson in the arm, chest and thigh. He spent six weeks in intensive care, incurred $361,000 in medical expenses and suffered permanent injuries, including lung damage and a paralyzed diaphragm.

Carlson’s attorney praised the decision of Bersin, who became U.S. attorney last year, to settle the case. But the lawyer, R.J. Coughlan, alleged that the agents’ use of the informant was extremely reckless.

“Once he held out the carrot of the largest cocaine haul in the history of San Diego, they were blinded,” Coughlan said. “The downside of the settlement is that this case will not receive a complete public airing.”