City Settles Civil Rights Lawsuit for $35,000

City officials have agreed to pay $35,000 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit by the owner of a car damaged in a hit-and-run crash involving an off-duty police officer that was allegedly covered up by his colleagues, officials said Wednesday.

City Manager Sean Joyce said he will sign off on a settlement offered by the city’s insurer, the Joint Powers Insurance Authority, and accepted by the plaintiff, Marisa Colatriano.

Colatriano sued the Police Department last August, alleging that it concealed the identity of then-South Pasadena Police Officer Scott D. Ziegler, the driver who in September 1995 sideswiped her parked car and drove off. Ziegler was driving a car registered to his in-laws, former South Pasadena Mayor Ted Shaw.

A report by a private investigator hired by the city found that Ziegler’s name had been erased from the police report. The FBI is continuing a probe of that incident and why officers told Colatriano they were still searching for a suspect when they knew who was driving the vehicle.

Prosecutors filed misdemeanor hit-and-run charges against Ziegler last summer.