CLAREMONT — A Claremont felon who sued two former Claremont police officers for unlawfully searching his home received a $75,000 payout when the lawsuit was settled, according to the city’s insurance company.
Christopher Ratcliffe filed the lawsuit in August in U.S. District Court of New Hampshire against former police officers Ian Kibbe and Mark Burch over the search three years ago. They reached a settlement by early December, but attorneys declined to reveal the amount of the settlement to the Valley News at the time.
On Wednesday, Mike Ricker, an attorney for New Hampshire Public Risk Management Exchange, also known as Primex, confirmed that the company had paid $75,000 to settle the lawsuit. The news site InDepthNH first reported the payment amount earlier this week.
Ratcliffe’s attorney, Samantha Heuring, declined to comment on the case Wednesday and Brian Cullen, an attorney for Kibbe and Burch, could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit stemmed from a February 2018 incident when Kibbe and Burch went to Ratcliffe’s Pleasant Street apartment to arrest him on charges of violating a protective order, according to prosecutors with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.
Ratcliffe claimed in his suit that Kibbe searched through his bags without a warrant and found a firearm, which Ratcliffe, as a felon, could not legally possess. Kibbe later lied in his police report and wrote that he found the weapon in plain sight, according to the lawsuit.
The Attorney General’s Office investigated the case and charged the two officers. Kibbe pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of unsworn falsification and obstructing government administration. He forfeited his police credentials for two years and was sentenced to 90 days in jail in 2019.
Burch, who resigned from the Claremont Police Department after the incident, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of falsification and received community service.
The family of the late Cody LaFont also sued Kibbe in 2019 for fatally shooting the 26-year-old LaFont after he called the police over a mental health issue. The Attorney General’s Office ruled that it could find no wrongdoing in that case, and the family later dropped the lawsuit.