Pot-smoking diabetic woman receives $125,000 settlement after police abuse

By Kase Wickman
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 12:55 EDT
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A woman arrested for smoking pot on the Lower East Side last year actually came out of the ordeal not with a ticket, but instead with a $125,000 settlement check from the New York Police Department, the New York Post reported.

The woman, Jaime Rutkowski, is diabetic. While police held her after arrest in October, they confiscated her blood testing kit, refusing to let her check her blood sugar or self-administer insulin. She was eventually rushed to a hospital by EMTs, her blood sugar three times higher than normal level.

“Any endocrinologist will confirm that this is enough for a Type-1 diabetic to go into shock, slip into a coma, and die,” her lawyer Joel Berger told the Post.

 
 
 
 
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