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    Tuesday, April 23, 2024

    Yale settles lawsuit over slain grad student

    FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2009 file photo, family members attend the funeral of Yale graduate student Annie Marie Le, at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in El Dorado Hills, Calif. Le's body was found stuffed in the wall of a Yale research building. According to a court document filed on Nov. 16, 2016, in Waterbury, Conn., Yale settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Le's family in 2011, which alleged the school had failed to adequately protect women on campus for years. Animal research technician Raymond Clark, who worked in the same lab building, had previously pleaded guilty to murdering Le and was sentenced to 44 years in prison. (AP Photo / Russel A. Daniels, File)

    HARTFORD — Yale University has agreed to pay $3 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a graduate student killed in a research lab days before her wedding.

    The settlement amount was listed in probate court documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. In a court document filed last week, lawyers for Yale and the family of Annie Le disclosed that the case was settled through mediation but did not mention the amount.

    Le's body was found stuffed in a wall at a Yale lab building on Sept. 13, 2009, the day of her scheduled wedding and five days after she disappeared. She had been strangled, and prosecutors said there was evidence of a sexual assault. The native of Placerville, California, was 24.

    An animal research technician who worked in the same lab building, Raymond Clark III, pleaded guilty to murdering Le and is serving a 44-year prison sentence. He apologized at his sentencing but did not offer an explanation.

    Le's family filed the lawsuit in 2011, alleging Yale had failed to adequately protect women on campus for years. Yale officials denied the allegations and said no additional security at the lab building, which required key card access, would have stopped the killing.

    Paul Slager, a lawyer for Le's family, declined to comment Tuesday and said Le's relatives would not be discussing the settlement, which is confidential.

    An attorney for Yale, Patrick Noonan, and Yale spokesman Thomas Conroy also declined to comment.

    The lawsuit alleged Yale officials should have known that Clark posed a potential danger to Le's safety, because he had previously demonstrated aggressive behavior and a "violent propensity towards women."

    Yale also denied that allegation, saying in a statement after the lawsuit was filed that it had no information indicating that Clark was capable of "committing this terrible crime."

    Le's relatives have said that what should have been a joyous wedding suddenly turned into mourning the loss of a woman whose research included finding new treatments for chronic diseases. She was a doctoral pharmacology student who worked on a team that experimented on mice as part of research into enzymes that could have implications for the treatment of cancer, diabetes and muscular dystrophy.

    Lab workers told police that Clark was controlling and viewed the lab and its mice as his territory.

    FILE - In this Sept. 17, 2009 file photo, Raymond Clark III is arraigned at Superior Court in New Haven, Conn., in connection with the murder of Annie Le, a Yale graduate student whose body was found stuffed in the wall of a Yale research building where they both worked. At left is Assistant Public Defender Jospeh E. Lopez. According to a court document filed on Nov. 16, 2016, in Waterbury, Conn., Yale settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Le's family in 2011, which alleged that Yale had failed to adequately protect women on campus for years. Clark had previously pleaded guilty to murdering Le and was sentenced to 44 years in prison. (AP Photo/Douglas Healey, Pool, File)

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