Tampabay: Settlement rule muzzles lawyer, just not for good

Trevena's media savvy presented Pinellas County officials with something of a dilemma recently. They wanted to settle a lawsuit Trevena had filed against Sheriff Everett Rice's office. But they didn't want to read about it in the newspaper.

So how do you keep Trevena's mouth shut?

County officials managed the trick (for a while) by telling Trevena that his client couldn't collect a $1,350 settlement unless the lawyer promised in writing to refrain from publicly commenting about the case or the settlement. He agreed.

Breathe a word and the money would be forfeited.

"We just didn't want him blowing his own horn on our account," Domenick Murano, Pinellas' risk management director, said Friday. "It's not like the county wanted to keep it secret. We just told him not to go and make a news story out of it."

That would have been the end of the story except for one thing: Trevena spilled the beans four months after signing the agreement.

Trevena, saying he was honoring his agreement with the county, refused to comment about the case or settlement. But he said he felt he was free to simply mention the case was settled. The unusual agreement is in a public court file open to anyone.

Murano agreed that Trevena was not in violation of the agreement by simply revealing the existence of what is, after all, a public record.

"He can tell anyone he wants," Murano said, as long as the lawyer doesn't offer comment about it.

Trevena filed a lawsuit on behalf of Gary DiViccaro, who was arrested by Pinellas deputies in January 2000 on charges that he tried to scalp Tampa Bay Buccaneers playoff tickets to undercover detectives. The charges were later dismissed.

The suit said the Sheriff's Office falsely arrested him and also violated his Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

In a bit of irony that's hard to miss, Trevena's suit says his client's rights were violated because deputies allowed a TV news crew to videotape the arrest.

Trevena's practice has a penchant for getting odd or newsworthy cases. His name has been in the news more than any Pinellas attorney in recent years. He's represented everyone from a man charged with impersonating a police officer for wearing an LAPD cap to the family of a teenage babysitter who found herself handcuffed at gunpoint.

On Friday, Trevena said the county was trying to avoid more publicity with the agreement.

"It's frightening that the sheriff and his legal henchmen are trying to subvert the First Amendment," Trevena said.

It's not unusual for private litigants to agree not to discuss a settlement. But almost all the county's business is, by law, open to public inspection, making nondisclosure agreements a rarity.

Murano said there is nothing illegal about the agreement. He says the idea for it came from Assistant County Attorney Thomas Spencer.

Spencer said the county wasn't trying to hide anything about a settlement that is in a public file.

He said, "I don't try my cases in the media after the fact. Mr. Trevena was ready and willing to agree that he wouldn't engage in such behavior."

Murano said he cannot recall the county asking an attorney to agree to such a stipulation in his 20 years in risk management.

Sheriff Rice, beneficiary of the nondisclosure agreement, doesn't much care whether Trevena comments about the lawsuit.

He said he didn't insist on secrecy.

"I've developed a thick skin about a lot of things," he said. "As long as they tell the truth, I don't care what people say about me."

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