A Haitian immigrant whose name became a byword for police brutality after he was attacked and a broomstick was rammed into his rectum by New York police has accepted $8.75 m in damages.
"I don't really see myself as a rich man," said Mr Abner Louima (34). "I see myself as someone who's lucky to be alive and able to see some justice."
He was attacked at a Brooklyn police station four years ago, and spent two months in hospital with a ruptured bladder and colon after being mistaken for a man who threw a punch at an officer outside a nightclub.
The fallout from the case prompted street protests and allegations that the NYPD targeted minorities for abuse.
Six officers have been convicted for the torture; one is serving 30 years in jail. The New York City metropolitan authority must pay Mr Louima more than $7 m and the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association will pay him $1.6 m. His lawyers get almost $3 m.
Mr Louima claimed recent reforms in the police department were a result of his case. However, lawyers for the city and the union said they would have happened anyway.