NEW YORK — The city has agreed to pay nearly $600,000 to settle allegations that police wrongfully arrested a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters, marking what their lawyers Tuesday called the largest settlement to date in a single Occupy-related civil rights case.

The $583,000 pact involves 14 demonstrators who said police ordered them to leave but prevented them from doing so and arrested them in lower Manhattan early on New Year’s Day 2012.

The disorderly conduct cases got dismissed, according to the protesters’ federal lawsuit, which argues they were arrested “for expressing their views.”

“We were out there to send a message, and our rights were suppressed,” one of the demonstrators, Garrett O’Connor, said Tuesday. The 34-year-old labor activist said police tackled him to the ground as he tried to follow their order to clear out.

City lawyers said settling “was in all parties’ best interest.”

Police have made more than 2,600 arrests on various charges at Occupy-related events over time. The Manhattan district attorney’s office agreed to dismiss about 78 percent of the cases.

There’s no official list of Occupy-related settlements, but lawyers involved track them informally. They include $230,000 that the city and Zuccotti Park’s private owner are paying over allegations that a book collection was trashed when the park was cleared, and $55,000 to a man arrested while shooting video at an Occupy demonstration, according to lawyers in those cases.

In the latest settlement, the individual protesters are receiving $5,000 to $20,000 apiece, and their lawyers $333,000 for fees and costs.


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