Yes. Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn sued the City of Vallejo and two of its police officers in 2016 after the department publicly called her real kidnapping a hoax, and the case settled in March 2018 for $2.5 million.1BBC. US Couple Accused of Hoax Kidnap Win $2.5m Settlement
Who They Sued and Why
The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California under 42 U.S.C. ยง 1983, the federal statute that lets people sue government employees who violate their constitutional rights on the job.2CourtListener. Huskins v. City of Vallejo3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 42 – Section 1983
Three defendants were named: the City of Vallejo, Detective Mathew Mustard as the lead investigator, and Lt. Kenny Park, the officer who told reporters the kidnapping had been staged. Naming both the city and individual officers is standard in Section 1983 cases. Municipalities can be held liable for policies and customs that produce constitutional violations, and individual officers can be held personally accountable for their own conduct.2CourtListener. Huskins v. City of Vallejo
The complaint alleged three overlapping harms. The constitutional claim was that police restricted the couple’s liberty without probable cause during aggressive interrogations, violating the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable seizures and the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process guarantee. The defamation claim rested on Lt. Park’s press conference and the department’s sustained public messaging, which branded Huskins and Quinn as criminals nationally. Park had told reporters that the couple “have plundered valuable resources away from our community” and “owe this community an apology.” The third claim was intentional infliction of emotional distress, based on the department treating a real trauma as a fabrication.
How the Settlement Resolved the Case
In March 2018 the City of Vallejo agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle all claims. The agreement included a standard no-admission-of-liability clause, meaning the city did not formally concede its officers did anything wrong.1BBC. US Couple Accused of Hoax Kidnap Win $2.5m Settlement Those clauses are routine in civil settlements; they exist mainly to prevent the payment from being used as evidence in other proceedings.
Settling ended the case before trial. For the city, that closed the door on a public airing of the department’s investigative failures. For Huskins and Quinn, it delivered financial resolution without the uncertainty of a jury verdict.
What Gets Taxed in a Settlement Like This
Under federal tax law, damages received for personal physical injuries or physical sickness are excluded from gross income. Emotional distress by itself does not qualify as a physical injury, so money tied to defamation, emotional distress, or reputational harm is generally treated as taxable income.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 26 – Section 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness Because the Huskins-Quinn lawsuit centered on defamation and civil rights violations rather than physical injury, a significant portion of the $2.5 million was likely subject to federal and state income tax.
The Guilty Plea That Made the Lawsuit Impossible to Defend
The reason the couple’s legal position was so strong: by the time the case settled, the actual kidnapper had already confessed in federal court.
Matthew Muller, a Harvard-educated immigration lawyer and Marine veteran, was arrested on June 8, 2015 by Dublin Police Services during an unrelated home invasion investigation. A search of his residence near South Lake Tahoe produced evidence linking him directly to Huskins’s abduction.5United States Department of Justice. Former Attorney and U.S. Marine Sentenced to 40 Years in Prison in Vallejo Kidnapping6United States Department of Justice. Vallejo Kidnapping Defendant Pleads Guilty
Muller’s plea was the clearest possible vindication. The department had insisted for months that no crime occurred while a confessed kidnapper was still at large. Settlement negotiations moved forward against that backdrop.
The Apology and What Happened to the Officers
The lawsuit closed in 2018, but a formal apology took three more years. In June 2021, Police Chief Shawny Williams, who was not chief at the time of the kidnapping, said the case “was not publicly handled with the type of sensitivity a case of this nature should have been handled with” and extended his “deepest apology to Ms. Huskins and Mr. Quinn for how they were treated during this ordeal,” calling what happened to them “horrific and evil.”7ABC7 News. Vallejo Gone Girl Case – Denise Huskins, Aaron Quinn Respond to Police Departments Apology for Calling Kidnapping a Hoax
The 2021 apology also revealed that former Police Chief Andrew Bidou had written letters to the couple back in July 2015 promising a public apology once the federal indictment against Muller was complete. That follow-up apology never happened under Bidou.8ABC7 News. Vallejo PD Apologizes More Than 6 Years After Calling Kidnapping a Hoax
Neither officer named in the lawsuit has faced publicly disclosed discipline for the handling of the case. Lt. Kenny Park eventually left the department. Detective Mathew Mustard retired from the Vallejo Police Department in 2025.9Open Vallejo. Mathew Mustard, of American Nightmare Infamy, Retires From Vallejo