A civil lawsuit over the 2008 Seattle death of art historian and Bangkok museum director Roxanna Brown has been settled, according to court documents filed today. Details of the settlement terms between Brown’s family and the United States were not disclosed. Seattle Weekly last year reported the questionable actions surrounding her death at the SeaTac Federal Detention Center five days after she was arrested, wrongly she said. Brown had survived Vietnam as a war correspondent, hanging with the likes of David Halberstam and Ted Koppel, and had earlier skirted death after losing her right leg from a motorbike crash in Thailand. But it was from a Seattle prison that she emerged in a body bag. The federal lawsuit sought damages from the U.S., based partly on claims by witnesses who said Brown got little to no treatment after collapsing in front of a detention officer. She died seven hours later from what medical staff had earlier diagnosed as a minor gastrointestinal “bug.”
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