UPDATE: Howling Pig Quieted by $425k Payout

Image via WikipediaFormer Univ. of Northern Colorado student Thomas Mink is $425,000 richer this week, the ACLU reports, following settlement of his 2004 claim based on a former Weld County Deputy District Attorney's approval of a search warrant of his home in connection with a criminal libel suit against The Howling Pig, an online publication of which he was the publisher (see "TUOL" posts 6/6/11, 7/22/10).

In Thomas Mink v. Susan Knox, a Deputy District Attorney Working for the 19th Judicial District Attorney's Office in Her Individual Capacity (Case No. 04-cv-00023) the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado found for Mink in his action under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by an illegal search and seizure of his home computer and written materials arising from a criminal libel probe based on comments about a professor that appeared in The Howling Pig. The Associated Press reported that Knox is no longer with the Weld County DA's office.