The Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska will pay more than $5.5 million
to 11 women who claimed they were sexually assaulted by a police
officer now serving 87 years in prison for rape, Mayor Dan Sullivan’s
office announced Tuesday.The settlement ends the lawsuits against the city, but some of the
victims plan to continue separate civil actions against former office
Anthony Rollins.The individual settlements range in size from $1.7 million for one woman down to $75,000.“Each woman had a different encounter with Mr. Rollins. Some of them
had first-degree sexual assault and some of them were something other
than that,” municipal attorney Dennis Wheeler said. “So each one was
evaluated based on the facts, and we negotiated a different amount based
on those facts.”Some women also chose lump sum payments, while others will receive guaranteed monthly payments spread out over 25 to 30 years.Paul Stockler, an attorney for one of the women, said his client was
raped while she was in handcuffs in 2009. The woman, who was detained in
a DUI case but not cited, reached a settlement of more than $947,000,
plus she will receive an annuity of $1,000 a month for life, Stockler
said.“There isn’t anyone that would go through or put their daughter
through what any of these girls went through for any sums of money that
any of them collected,” he said.Stockler and another client’s attorney, Kevin Fitzgerald, praised the
city for not dragging out the cases and for implementing changes, such
as videotaping every encounter and making female officers more
available.Fitzgerald’s client, who reached a $100,000 settlement, is thinking
of moving outside the state to leave the past behind, he said.“She’s happy to have it in her rear view mirror,” Fitzgerald said.Rollins was convicted last year of sexually assaulting five women.
Those women, along with others who claimed they were assaulted, claimed
in their lawsuits the city failed to supervise or discipline Rollins,
who is now 45.The Anchorage Police Department had for years investigated reports of
on-duty sexual activity by Rollins, according to court documents filed
months before the settlement.The lawsuits claimed Rollins’ employers should have known he posed a
threat to women after catching him having sex while on duty, the
Anchorage Daily News reported in March. Rollins was suspended and then
fired from the force after a woman reported in 2009 that he forced her
to perform oral sex during a drunken driving arrest.Police began investigating Rollins first in 2001 after they received a
report that a woman performed oral sex on him in an apartment hallway.
After denials from the woman and Rollins, the report was deemed
unfounded.In 2003, a prostitute reported she had been threatened with arrest
unless she provided sexual favors – although no sex occurred. The
department’s Internal Affairs Unit and the FBI launched a sting
operation with an undercover agent posing as a prostitute.The agent reported two “flirtatious” encounters with Rollins, but
police found while tracking Rollins that he spent “an inordinate amount
of time” at the home of a woman who was a member of his church.Rollins admitted to about 20 sexual encounters, saying he listened to
the police radio at the woman’s home and responded to calls from there,
according to the documents. He got a negative review and was
transferred to patrol duty.Eventually he wound up in the public affairs office, becoming a
police spokesman at times. He was disciplined for having sex in that
office, and the documents say a supervisor recommended sending him back
to patrol duty. Chief Mark Mew said later that Rollins had been
“punished severely.”


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