A federal judge ordered the city of St. Paul to pay $1.7 million in attorneys fees after a jury found an officer used excessive force in fatally shooting a 29-year-old man.

The payment was on top of $3.25 million in compensatory damages and $1.5 million in punitive damage, plus interest. The city sent payment of more than $7.5 million last week.

Cordale Handy (Courtesy of Kimberly Handy-Jones)

Cordale Handy’s mother pursued the lawsuit, and her attorneys filed a notice in federal court on Monday that the city had paid the full amount.

The Handy case was a rare occasion of a lawsuit against the city of St. Paul in a shooting by an officer being heard by a jury — and it’s the largest amount that’s been awarded in a case involving the city of St. Paul. Other lawsuits have been dismissed before trial or ended in settlements negotiated between attorneys.

A $2 million settlement approved by the St. Paul City Council in 2017 had been the largest the city had agreed to. It was for a man who was hospitalized for two weeks after he was bit by a police dog and kicked by a St. Paul officer while he was unarmed and not the suspect police were looking for.

St. Paul is self insured, meaning the money comes out of the city’s budget. The city budgets annually for legal purposes and is also taking cost-saving measures this year to help cover the full cost of the payment, according to a spokesperson for the mayor.

For Handy’s mother, Kimberly Handy-Jones, “no matter how much money the city pays, it never brings back somebody’s child,” said attorney Paul Bosman, who represented her with attorney Kevin O’Connor.

It was a legal victory, “but it’s always a little hollow because you can’t pay for the loss of Cordale,” he added Monday.

St. Paul City Attorney Lyndsey Olson said the judge’s rulings surprised the city because they differed from the “earlier, well-reasoned decisions” of the original judge on the case.

“Recognizing the court’s broad discretion, both the city and the plaintiff have chosen to accept these rulings rather than prolong the matter with additional appeals,” she said in a statement.

1 of 2 officers found civilly liable

St. Paul Police officers Nathaniel Younce and Mikko Norman responded about 2:20 a.m. on March 15, 2017, to a 911 call about a female screaming in an apartment building in the 700 block of East Sixth Street in Dayton’s Bluff. Handy lived there with his girlfriend of 10 years.

Younce and Norman didn’t know before they shot Handy that he’d fired 16 gunshots at a couch in his apartment. He was seeing people who weren’t there and thought they were hiding in the apartment, his girlfriend testified during the first trial in the lawsuit.

A toxicology report showed Handy had a stimulant drug in his system known by the street name of “bath salts.” O’Connor, Handy-Jones’ attorney, told a jury in January that Handy had used marijuana or “Molly” and it was apparently laced with another drug, which caused him to not be “in his right state of mind.”

The officers encountered Handy outside the building. They reported they saw Handy fall down backward, lower his gun and raise it briefly toward Norman. The officers said Handy raised the gun toward Norman a second time, and the officers fired. The incident occurred out of view of security cameras, and the police department hadn’t yet rolled out body-worn cameras.

Handy’s girlfriend and a neighbor testified he did not point the gun.

The previous jury concluded Younce violated Handy’s constitutional rights and wrongfully caused his death. Norman fired just after Younce and jurors found him not civilly liable. An earlier investigation concluded they were not criminally responsible, and they were not charged.

2nd trial was over compensatory damages

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During the first civil trial in summer 2023, a jury decided the city of St. Paul should pay Handy’s family $1.5 million in punitive damages and $10 million in compensatory damages.

The city objected to the amount of compensatory damages and a federal judge who presided over the original case agreed.

Handy-Jones opted for another trial to decide compensatory damages, which was held in January. That jury decided on $3.25 million in compensatory damages.

Both officers left the St. Paul Police Department — Norman in 2021 and Younce in summer 2024.

A St. Paul charter school’s founder and former superintendent has agreed to pay the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office $220,000 as part of a settlement agreement after it alleged she lost more than $4 million of the school’s money in an illegal hedge fund investment.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in December sued Christianna Hang, alleging she invested $5 million of Hmong College Prep Academy’s money without the approval of the school’s board of directors, in violation of law and against the advice of the school’s lawyer and accountant. According to the school’s 2021 year-end audit, the value of the investment fell to $684,762.

State law prohibits schools from investing in hedge funds, which often use risky investment strategies.

“The lapse in judgment that led Ms. Hang to invest millions of nonprofit assets into an obscure hedge fund is truly astonishing,” Ellison said in a statement Monday. “I am pleased that we were able to obtain as much relief as possible for Hmong College Prep Academy in this action. This lawsuit is an important reminder of why nonprofit directors and officers are required under Minnesota law to act in the best interest of their organization.”

Ellison’s office will give the money to Hmong College Prep Academy to partially compensate it for its loss. The charter school also settled with the New Jersey hedge fund Woodstock Capital Partners and investment manager Clark Reiner last year.

Hmong College Prep Academy sued Woodstock in federal court in 2021 after Hang’s 2019 investment.

Under that settlement agreement, Reiner and Woodstock are to pay Hmong College Prep Academy $400,000. However, while they were obligated to pay the sum by December, the funds were still not available as of late May and representatives for the charter school filed an unopposed motion in U.S. District Court in June to enforce the settlement agreement within five business days.

An attorney with the school reached Monday declined to comment on the motion or its status.

Hang chose Woodstock on the advice of Kay Yang, an unregistered investor from Wisconsin, according to Ellison’s December complaint.

Hang resigned from the school in 2021 after the investment details became public and the school was criticized in a report from the Office of the Minnesota State Auditor, according to the Attorney General’s Office. Ellison’s office then began an independent investigation.

A federal court in Wisconsin later ordered Yang to pay millions in restitution and penalties related to her unregistered investment activity. Hang and her husband lost $125,000 of their own money investing with Yang, according to Ellison.

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TikTok users in the U.S. may get a reprieve from the threat of a shutdown after the Trump administration announced it has reached a framework deal with China for the ownership of the popular social video platform.

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a press conference after the latest round of trade talks between the world’s top two economies concluded in Madrid that U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping would speak Friday to possibly finalize the deal. He said the objective of the deal would be to switch to American ownership.

He did not disclose the terms of the deal, saying that it is between two private parties, but added that “the commercial terms have been agreed upon.”

What is the deal?

Little is known about the actual deal in the works, including what companies are involved and whether the United States would have a stake in TikTok. Li Chenggang, China’s international trade representative, said the two sides have reached “basic framework consensus” to properly solve TikTok-related issues in a cooperative way, reduce investment barriers and promote related economic and trade cooperation, according to China’s official news agency Xinhua.

Oracle Corp. has been floated as a likely buyer for the platform. Representatives for the company did not immediately respond to a message for comment on Monday.

In Madrid, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the team was “very focused on TikTok and making sure that it was a deal that is fair for the Chinese,” but also “completely respects U.S. national security concerns.”

Wang Jingtao, deputy director of China’s Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, told reporters in Madrid there was consensus on authorization of “the use of intellectual property rights such as (TikTok’s) algorithm” — a main sticking point in the deal.

The sides also agreed on entrusting a partner with handling U.S. user data and content security, he said.

Extensions continue

Though he has no clear legal basis to do so, Trump has continued to extend the deadline for TikTok to avoid a ban in the U.S. This gives his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership. The next deadline is on Sept. 17, and Trump has already signaled he would extend it if needed.

It is not clear how many times Trump can keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance. While there is no clear legal basis for the extensions, so far, there have been no legal challenges against the administration. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a “warm spot for TikTok.”

How do Americans view TikTok?

For now, TikTok continues to function for its 170 million users in the U.S. Tech giants Apple, Google and Oracle were persuaded to continue to offer and support the app, on the promise that Trump’s Justice Department would not use the law to seek potentially steep fines against them.

Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.

Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.

Why does the U.S. want China to divest?

During his first term as president, Trump led the effort to ban TikTok, saying it posed a threat to U.S. national security. But his tune changed when he returned to the White House a second time, signing an executive order on his first day in office to keep the app running.

During Joe Biden’s Democratic presidency, Congress and the White House used national security grounds to approve a U.S. ban on TikTok unless its Chinese parent company sold its controlling stake.

U.S. officials were concerned about ByteDance’s roots and ownership, pointing to laws in China that require Chinese companies to hand over data requested by the government. Another concern became the proprietary algorithm that populates what users see on the app.

A suspected drunken driver pleaded guilty Monday to causing a crash on Interstate 694 in Arden Hills last year that killed a New Brighton couple.

Charges say Luis Eduardo Tipantuna Quinchiguano’s blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit to drive in the crash that killed Curtis John O’Connor, 76, and Karin Leigh O’Connor, 74, on westbound I-694 near Snelling Avenue about 8:45 a.m. Feb. 16, 2024.

Luis Eduardo Tipantuna Quinchiguano (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Tipantuna Quinchiguano, 32, of Minneapolis, reached an agreement with Ramsey County prosecutors, admitting to two counts of criminal vehicular homicide for driving in a grossly negligent manner.

Two counts of criminal vehicular homicide while under the influence of alcohol will be dismissed at his sentencing, which is scheduled for Dec. 8, according to court records. Tipantuna Quinchiguano remains jailed.

According to the criminal complaint, witnesses said that Tipantuna Quinchiguano crashed his 2008 Chevrolet Equinox into the couple’s 2018 Chevrolet Malibu and pushed the sedan into the left lane in front of a semitrailer. The semi collided with the driver’s side of the Malibu, and the couple died at the scene.

Troopers saw open bottles of alcohol in the Equinox and Tipantuna Quinchiguano, who would regain consciousness and quickly fall back to sleep, had bloodshot and glassy eyes and smelled of alcohol.

A preliminary breath test showed a 0.218 BAC on a “very weak puff of breath captured manually,” the complaint says.  The legal limit to drive in Minnesota is 0.08.

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