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Linden has agreed to pay $575,000 to settle a federal civil rights suit stemming from a municipal court case in which the town's judge served as both judge and prosecutor.

The settlement was awarded to cousins Wendell Kirkland and Anthony Kirkland in connection with irregularities in the handling of a 2010 criminal trial by then-Municipal Court Judge Louis DiLeo. The civil settlement was reached in April but terms were not disclosed at that time. The terms were first reported Oct. 5 on NJ Civil Settlements, a blog run by open-government activist John Paff, who obtained the terms through an Open Public Records Act request.

A Superior Court judge who overturned the Kirklands' convictions by DiLeo called the episode a “perversion of justice.” The Supreme Court issued a reprimand to DiLeo for his handling of the case. DiLeo had served as the town's municipal judge since 2003 but the city declined to reappoint him in 2012.