Kalief Browder’s Suicide Leads to $3 Million Settlement

At 22, he committed suicide and his tragic story was documented in the Jay-Z produced “The Kalief Browder Story.”

Now, his estate has finally reached a multi-million dollar settlement with the city.

New York City has agreed to pay $3.3 million to settle a lawsuit on behalf of the estate of Mr. Browder, who became a symbol of the corrupt criminal justice in New York.

In a statement, the city’s Law Department said, “Kalief Browder’s story helped inspire numerous reforms to the justice system to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again, including an end to punitive segregation for young people on Rikers Island.

“We hope that this settlement and our continuing reforms help bring some measure of closure to the Browder family,” the statement added.

“It’s a fair settlement, given the tragedy of what happened here,” Browder family lawyer, Sanford A. Rubenstein, Rubenstein said. “While no money can ever bring Kalief Browder back, we hope the settlement of this case and the changes that took place at Rikers will result in this not happening to any other victims.”

Browder’s case was detailed in a 2014 article in The New Yorker, which described how he was arrested at age 16 in 2010, beaten by correction officers and arepeatedly had his court appearance delayed. He also turned down offers to plead guilty for immediate release because he insisted on his innocence.

Bronx prosecutors ultimately dropped the case against him and Kalief Browder was released in 2013.