Arbitrator rejects mother's lawsuit in sidewalk vandalism case

Timothy Williams ruled Friday in favor of the developer who commissioned the concrete sidewalk and Metro Police, which arrested Jeremy Anderson for his crime.

Barbara Anderson complained that her son was strip-searched after his arrest and held for hours by police while being questioned without her present.

Although her son admitted responsibility for his acts, Ms. Anderson's anger at Metro and Plaster Development resulted in the lawsuit because "money is what teaches them."

But it is Ms. Anderson who must pay under the arbitrator's ruling.

Williams ordered that she pay $250 to Metro attorney Walt Cannon and Plaster Development lawyer Richard Avila to cover costs incurred in fighting the lawsuit.

Ms. Anderson now has 30 days to decide whether to accept the arbitrator's ruling or demand a trial before a District Court judge.

Ms. Anderson said the lawsuit never would have been necessary if authorities hadn't pursued criminal charges against her son, arresting him at his school and holding him for hours at the juvenile detention center without notifying her.

When the now-10-year-old boy was sentenced on April 30, 1997, Juvenile Hearing Master Sylvia Beller questioned whether he had learned his lesson in the months since the November 1996 incident.

The boy and his mother appeared on several national news shows and complained in national magazines about his incarceration and interrogation.

Jeremy pleaded no contest to a gross misdemeanor charge although he maintained that a workman gave him permission to scrawl his name and the names of his friends in the wet cement. He was put on probation for his crime.

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