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Subscribe to RSSLOS ANGELES -- The family of a 15-year-old girl who died of an Ecstasy overdose after a rave at the Coliseum in 2010 has settled in court for $190,000, the lawyer for the family said on Saturday.
Sasha Rodriguez died after the Electric Daisy Carnival dance party at LA’s historic sports venue in a high-profile case that led to the arrests of two former Coliseum executives and a grand jury indictment investigating public corruption.
Rodriguez was underage; the party was intended for those 16 and older.
See the original report, video at NBCLosAngeles.com
Some $175,00 will be paid to her family on behalf of the rave concert promoter, Insomniac Inc., and the Coliseum Commission. Coliseum manager Todd DeStefano will pay $15,000, said Steven D. Archer, a lawyer for Sasha’s parents.
A lawyer for Insomniac, Gary Jay Kaufman, told the Los Angeles Times that Rodriguez’s death was not the promoter's fault.
"Insomniac was sued for who we were, not what we did," he told The Times in a statement. "If Sasha Rodriguez had snuck into the Hollywood Bowl during a Barry Manilow concert and overdosed on some drug, there never would have been a lawsuit.
"Insomniac did not admit any wrongdoing or liability as part of the settlement because they did not in fact do anything wrong."
In a case unrelated to Sasha’s death, prosecutors said in March that six people, including three former top managers for the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, were indicted on conspiracy, embezzlement and bribery charges for allegedly stealing millions of dollars from the stadium.
A Los Angeles County grand jury indicted DeStefano, Coliseum general manager Patrick Lynch, former technical manager Leopold Caudillo Jr., music and event promoters Pasquale Rotella and Reza Gerami, and janitorial contractor Antonio Estrada.
The indictment alleged that Lynch, 55, and DeStefano, 39, participated in a variety of schemes beginning in 2006 that siphoned money from the city- and county-owned stadium into their own pockets, prosecutors said.
Las Vegas embraces rave shunned by Los Angeles
DeStefano, who quit in January 2011, allegedly received more than $1.8 million from Insomniac, the company that produced the Electric Daisy Carnival, and Go Ventures, which also sponsored Coliseum events, the District Attorney said.
"The only thing $190,000 settles is which side had better lawyers,” LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who sits on the panel, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this settlement compounds the tragic death of Sasha Rodriguez."
The Coliseum briefly imposed a moratorium on rave events at the venue following Rodriguez's death.
A lawyer for DeStefano declined to comment.
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Let me add this: I blame those who buy it but kids are very gullible, very unwise antmore, not that we were so bright in 50s, 60s, but I was away in Marines in 60s.
The parents should be sued for raising a girl like that.
Clearly, you have no experience with raising children in a society that allows creeps like these promoters to exist. Please refrain from further ignorant comments.
texc2
I raise my children not this society. Where did the parents think their daughter was at while they were drinking and smoking weed?
tex2c, you have no idea how these kid can and will do anything to go to these events, just to have fun.
maybe you should take a few pills to see.
way to move blame from anyone BUT the parents and the child, i dont give a rats ass how horrible you ALLEGE the promoters are they will continue to exist, its just sad absent minded parents let their daughter die, id charge them with negligent homicide or something like that NOT GIVE THEM 200K.
Did they sue the people selling or giving away ecstasy?
I think we're having a German problem
These sleazy promoters making money off children should be put in the same jail cell as child porno creeps. Is there no morality left in the right wing greed mongers souls?
huh?? she snuck in, she wasnt kidnap and given the drugs, hello, is your brain on today??
shake it a bit, it might get some synapse functional again!!
Are you kidding me!! The parents should be held responsible for letting their under 16 year old daughter out of the house without knowing where she was going! So large event, kid sneaks in... and its the large events fault. Are you kidding me?!?! What about personal responsibilitity, parental responsibility...?
The girl herself and her parents are to blame. Personal responsibility for ones actions cannot be excused or over-ruled by bad results. If responsibility were to have been applied here, the girl would not have been allowed to go, and the girl herself would not have wanted to go. It is the care for the welfare that was neglected, and this is limited to mere security of the event, the rest of the care was suppose to be the person, and the person's parents.
Nobody forced the girl to take the drugs. 15 is plenty old enough to know right from wrong. This is just another example of our out of control tort system coming from the same state that was paying the city planner of a town of 100 residents $540,000 a year in retirement after he was found guilty of misusing public funds. Freakin ridiculous!
File this case under the "It's always someone else's fault" heading.
Heck for that kind of cash i would let you have my 15 year old daughter to keep.
At least the parents can make a buck off their child's death.
It's so nice that her parents take interest in her life now that money is involved and she's dead.
They allowed her to attend, they allowed her to hang with those types of friends and somehow the message about drug use never got through to her. I smell Darwin.
Do they have a son? I wonder if they allow him to run around with his underwear showing and act like a dumb azz gang banger.
Sorry, I don't ALLOW my kids to attend such things MAYBE because I am a RESPONSIBLE parent.
Outside of that comment, I do hope that the lawsuit makes others think twice about how they conduct their behavior in the future.
I'm not entirely convinced that justice was served here. If the girl had not successfully entered the venue the concert was being held in, she would have done the drugs some other place. If she had overdosed in a city park would the City Park Commission have been sued? And if so, could they realistically have lost? I doubt it. It's head-hunting in my opinion.
Unbelievable. The only guilt that could have been laid on the promoter was if their employees knowingly allowed underage customers in the event or knowingly allowed drugs to be openly sold at the event.
When I was underage, there was a local club that was well known amongst high schoolers for their look the other way policy. You could get in and drink without any real issue. The owners knew, the bouncers knew, the bartenders and servers knew. And there was a back room where people would go and do some drugs. Again, everyone knew. If this girl was at an event run the same way, I could certainly say that the promoter would share in the eventual death of this girl.
But, this article doesn't state anything of the sort.
If the promoters didn't know. If they did everything appropriately in regards to security and staff. Then they are not culpable to a girl who snuck in and made poor choices.
Wait a sec here..
First off the girl went to a concert, and she was underage.
Then she willing took a drug to enhance her pleasure while dancing.
Then she died from result of taking the drugs.
Now her parent get 175k for it??
Wow im send all my kids out to do drugs, might as well, Theres No more personal responsiblity anymore.
I could bank on this easily!
This is absolutely hilarious! Easy money for the parents. For a mistake they cause, excuse me!!!
You cannot secure an event when a young person want to get in somewhere they will use all means to get there, you cannot blame anyone but the parent and the child involved, if a teenager want to go they would sneak out and go!
so i find this sickening to know that you can bank on your kid stupid desicion! what was the judge thinking!
There is no such word in the English language as 'snuck.' It is sneaked.
who cares you understood what i meant, okay. so please spare me your grammar and spelling bee routine, get a life stop proofreading everything in life.
nice so the parents weren't aware of where their underage daughter was for an evening and she dies yet they have the balls to blame someone else. what a country we live in. i guess i should just start having kids neglecting them then when they die try to sue someone because I DIDN'T PARENT THEM. what a crock, these parents should be dead not having a 200K payout because THEY let their daughter die...
Typical. The parents of some stupid teen who took drugs need to find someone else to blame for their inadequacies as parents, and make a few hundred thousand bucks from it too.. Its clear where their minds are as they 'mourn'.
I agree with you John 383. As for the guy who called me a monkey, you are pretty ignorant. Her mother raised her and I showed her a better way of life as I did not win custody. The kid is turning out OK. Bad things CAN happen to good kids. Shawn- people like you will get your asses whipped if you pull that kind of talk on the streets. You are one conceited, self serving, smug person.
Bety there was an assload of second generation illegals,I mean "americans'
I'm descended from illegal European immigrants, wanna fight about it? I mean, I'm white so it's ok, right? Granted that was five generations ago...