$3.5 Million Given Father in Newport Missing-Child Case

A Superior Court jury has ordered the City of Newport Beach to pay $3.5 million to a man who claimed that police failed to respond adequately to his daughter’s abduction nine years ago.

The jury deliberated six days before reaching a verdict Tuesday that the city and Sgt. Charles Olmstead, the police watch commander who was in charge the night of the alleged abduction, were liable in the disappearance of Lisa Marie Scozari, who was taken from her father’s custody by her mother.

The jury also awarded $325,000 to Lisa Marie, who will turn 12 in September. The father, Arthur A. Scozari, still has not located his daughter or her mother, but he indicated that he will use the money to continue the search for the child.

Lt. Tim Newman, a Police Department spokesman, called the decision by the 12-member jury “a travesty of justice.” Without elaborating, he accused Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ryan of prohibiting evidence during the trial that would have allowed the jury to decide otherwise.

“We definitely plan to appeal. There is no question about it. We are very disappointed in the verdict,” Newman said.

“It’s a terrible thing when a child is separated from a parent like this. But at the same time, the verdict in this case is not justice. It is not fair, and it does not make any sense.”

According to court documents, Scozari, 63, a retired attorney, and Marie Anne Kennedy, 48, were never married but had been involved in many domestic disputes over the child when the three of them lived in Florida. In 1978, Scozari left Florida with the child and moved to California without telling Kennedy, court records show.

Scozari filed the lawsuit in 1979, shortly after Kennedy, disguised in a wig and sunglasses, took her daughter from Scozari’s uncle’s home in Newport Beach. She was aided by John Saporito, a private investigator from Newport Beach.

Scozari, who acted as his own attorney in court, claimed that he reported the abduction to the police, but that they failed to try to locate the child. He charged that police were biased because Saporito is a former police officer who was acquainted with officers in Newport Beach.

Other former defendants in the suit, including Saporito and friends of the mother who allegedly helped her hide the child, settled with Scozari for $350,000 shortly after the trial started in February.

But the jury did not know that Saporito had been removed from the lawsuit and subsequently found him free of any liability in the case.

“As far as (Scozari) was concerned, it was a kidnaping. But the private investigator contacted the police and convinced them that the mother had legal right to the child,” said Martin Gladstein, an attorney who assisted Scozari.

“The police bought (Saporito’s) story and refused to neutralize the situation and get both parties together and establish who had rights. If nothing else, they should have put (the child) in protective custody and let a judge decide. Olmstead acted as judge and jury.”

Olmstead said Saporito called police shortly after Scozari reported the alleged abduction and explained that it was a domestic dispute. He said the investigator later sent a courier to the Police Department with copies of the child’s birth certificate and a restraining order from a Florida judge, indicating that the mother had custody of the child pending a court hearing.

“I didn’t know where they were, and I had no way to reach them outside a needle-in-a-haystack plan,” Olmstead said Wednesday. “Basically . . . he sued us for not arresting (the mother) when we didn’t have the means, in my estimation, to arrest her and maintain a neutral position.

‘One of the Worst’

“I have seen a lot of police work in 17 years, and this is probably one of the worse (court) decisions I have ever seen. It’s unfortunate that someone is able to manipulate the legal system to his own advantage this way. The only real victim . . . is the daughter. It’s a tremendous failure of the system.”

Attorney Patrick G. Quinlivan, who represented the city, said the ruling places police officers in a precarious position.

“The jury has blamed the city for the loss of a child when the officers had no idea where the woman or the child was and had no legal means for requiring them to come into the station because the mother had not committed a crime,” Quinlivan said.

“If this case is allowed to stand, an officer is put in the position of trying to decide whether to arrest someone and detain them because he might be sued if he doesn’t go far enough. Each situation is different, and this kind of jury decision can handcuff police in how they act. In each case the officer has to be free to exercise his discretion.”

The $3.8-million ruling against Newport Beach is the latest in a series of financial setbacks for the city in court cases.

Copter Crash Award

In April, the city’s insurance carrier agreed to pay part of the lifetime support of a wife and daughter of a civilian who was killed in a midair collision between two police helicopters. The settlement could amount to $3.7 million in lifetime payments for the two family members.

Likewise, in January, the city’s insurance company agreed to pay out $3.75 million to a man who was paralyzed in 1980 when he dived off Balboa Pier and struck a sand bar.