Settlement Reached in Suit Over Police File : Civil rights: Council still must approve $450,000 payment to activist who accused a high LAPD official of using the information against him during a Pasadena election.

The city has tentatively agreed to pay $450,000 to settle the lawsuit of a political activist who accused the Los Angeles Police Department’s second-in-command, Assistant Chief Robert L. Vernon, of using a department computer to gather and disburse information against him during a Pasadena city election.

Michael Zinzun, a former Black Panther Party official, claimed that Vernon violated his civil rights and damaged his 1989 campaign for the Pasadena Board of City Directors by making sensitive police intelligence files available to a member of the directors board who was not running against Zinzun.

The records were obtained from the department’s Anti-Terrorist Division, but Vernon said they were non-classified documents, consisting mainly of electronic versions of newspaper and magazine articles, according to Zinzun’s attorney, Dan Stormer.

The settlement, reached between Stormer and the city attorney’s office, has already caused some concern on the City Council, which must approve the payment. The council’s Budget and Finance Committee will consider the item in closed session Friday.

“If all Chief Vernon did was hand over a bunch of newspaper articles, then why should it cost the taxpayers $450,000?” asked City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who heads the committee,

“We are going to want to know more about this case and whether there is more to this than meets the eye,” he added. “I can’t imagine the city attorney recommending this much of a settlement if that is all that is involved.

“The public interest may be better served with a full trial.”

Deputy City Atty. Mary E. House refused to discuss details of the proposed settlement other than to say her office is “prepared to go to trial on Tuesday” should the council reject the settlement. However, she said cases like Zinzun’s alleging violations of civil rights are usually settled for high amounts because a jury has the option of adding large attorney fees to any damages they might award.

Stormer said he is confident that a jury will find in his client’s favor.

“They clearly interfered with Michael’s electoral campaign,” Stormer said. “. . . We are prepared to show that many people who read the stories about this case would not have supported him because they thought he was involved in some illegal activity.

“The bottom line is Chief Vernon should have never been allowed to use the computers at the Anti-Terrorism Division. They are top-secret.”

At Vernon’s request, the department’s Anti-Terrorist Division printed out 50 documents--156 pages in all--and gave them to Vernon, whose wife showed them to a political critic of Zinzun on the Pasadena board who also was a neighbor of Vernon.

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates later rebuked Vernon and asked him to pay for the computer time, Stormer said. Gates insisted that Vernon did not use sensitive material, but Zinzun, a longtime LAPD critic, said he did not believe him, Stormer said.

“I don’t blame Zinzun for not believing me because I would never believe anything Zinzun ever had to say,” Gates said at the time.

Zinzun played a central role in advocating the dismantling of the Police Department’s Public Disorder Intelligence Division (PDID), the forerunner of the Anti-Terrorist Division.

Zinzun’s Los Angeles-based organization, the Coalition Against Police Abuse, was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The PDID unit was disbanded in 1983 and the city settled the lawsuit for $1.8 million.