KVIG Informative

A federal jury already found Las Vegas police liable for Kirstin Blaise Lobato’s wrongful murder conviction. Metro’s own fiscal committee has now agreed to pay her $29.5 million of it — taxpayer money, for a case the department fought in court for years before losing.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s Fiscal Affairs Committee approved a $29.5 million settlement with Kirstin Blaise Lobato, a woman who spent more than 16 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted in the 2001 killing of Duran Bailey, according to the committee’s own Sept. 9 meeting agenda.

A federal jury found in Lobato’s favor in December 2024, awarding her $34 million in damages in her civil lawsuit against the department. The settlement approved this fall represents a reduction from that jury verdict.

Lobato’s attorney, David Owens, confirmed the settlement was accepted during the committee’s meeting. Lobato has since received a certificate of innocence tied to the case.

The settlement is paid entirely through public funds, following the pattern of nearly all police misconduct settlements nationally, which researchers have found are almost never paid by the individual officers involved, but instead by the taxpayer-funded municipal budgets of the departments that employ them.

LVMPD’s Fiscal Affairs Committee, the body that approved the settlement, operates as a standing committee of the department responsible for reviewing and recommending financial decisions, including litigation settlements, before they move forward.

Nevada law does not require police officers found to have engaged in fabricating evidence to personally contribute toward settlements resulting from that conduct, meaning the financial consequences of the wrongful conviction fall entirely on public funds rather than the individuals or department personnel involved in building the original case against Lobato.

Kirstin Blaise Lobato lost 16 years of her life to a conviction built on evidence a federal jury determined was fabricated. The $29.5 million settlement closes her case. It does nothing to identify, on the public record, who inside LVMPD built that case in the first place — or whether they still carry a badge.