- The city of Vallejo has agreed to pay a $2.5 million settlement for a federal lawsuit filed by a couple in a bizarre kidnapping case from 2015. 
 
 An attorney for Denise Huskins and her fiance Aaron Quinn said his clients are "grateful." 
 
 James M. Wagstaffe, the couples attorney, issued a statement Thursday that said, "One can only hope that the message of this settlement will be that victims are to be believed and that the police will accept a woman’s highly credible report that she was kidnaped and raped.” He added that the "nightmare" experience has concluded. 
 
 The lawsuit accused the city and two police officers of defamation and inflicting emotional distress. 
 
 The ordeal began in March, 2015 when Huskins, 30 at the time, was forcibly taken from her Mare Island home by an unknown abductor and a ransom demand was made. 
 
 Police did not believe the story, initially saying the case was a hoax and many compared it to the film 'Gone Girl', in which a woman goes missing and then lies about being kidnaped when she reappears. 
 
 Police eventually apologized for their mistake. 
 
 In March of 2017, two days after Huskins' kidnaper, ex-lawyer Matthew Muller was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison, the couple got engaged and posted photos publicly on Facebook. 
 
 During the trial, the couple gave gut-wrenching testimony against their tormentor. They said he drugged them and bound them in their home in an elaborate kidnapping that involved spying on them with a remote-controlled drone. 
 
 Muller, the kidnaper, even came to Huskins’ defense, blasting police for not believing her story. He went as far as writing a series of bizarre emails and a manifesto, including writings to KTVU's Henry Lee, outlining what he had done. 
 
 The City of Vallejo admits no wrongdoing in the settlement. 
 
 The @CityofVallejo has agreed to pay $2.5M to settle federal lawsuit filed by Denise Huskins & bf, who said cops faked her kidnapping, when in fact she was abducted by Matthew Muller. Couple’s attorney sends statement to @KTVU: pic.twitter.com/eoZCqONAjZ — Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) March 16, 2018 ||||| FILE--In this Sept. 29, 2016, file photo, attorney Anthony Douglas Rappaport, left, speaks at a news conference with his clients, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn, right, in San Francisco.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE--In this Sept. 29, 2016, file photo, attorney Anthony Douglas Rappaport, left, speaks at a news conference with his clients, Denise Huskins and her boyfriend Aaron Quinn, right, in San Francisco. The couple that police detectives wrongly accused of fabricating the woman's kidnapping from their... (Associated Press) 
 
 VALLEJO, Calif. (AP) — A couple reached a $2.5 million settlement with a Northern California city and its police department after investigators dismissed the woman's elaborate and bizarre kidnapping as a hoax. 
 
 Police in the city of Vallejo initially discounted a report by Denise Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, that a masked intruder drugged them in their home and then kidnapped her in 2015. 
 
 The assailant sexually assaulted Huskins and released her two days later outside her family's home in Southern California. The Associated Press doesn't normally name victims of sexual assault, but Huskins has frequently spoken publicly about the case in the past. 
 
 Police realized the couple were telling the truth after a disbarred Harvard University-trained attorney, Matthew Muller, was implicated in another crime and tied to the abduction. He pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and is serving a 40-year prison term. 
 
 Quinn's mother, Marianne Quinn, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the settlement in the lawsuit was reached Thursday. 
 
 Vallejo police had apologized after discounting the outlandish kidnapping. 
 
 Muller used a drone to spy on the couple before he broke into their home with a fake gun, tied them up and made them drink a sleep-inducing liquid, prosecutors said. They were blindfolded while Muller played a recorded message that made it seem as if there was more than one kidnapper. 
 
 He put Huskins in the trunk of his car, drove her to his home in South Lake Tahoe and held her there for two days. Investigators said they found videos of Muller arranging cameras in a bedroom and then recording himself twice sexually assaulting his blindfolded victim. 
 
 During and after the kidnapping, Muller used an anonymous email address to send messages to a San Francisco reporter claiming that Huskins was abducted by a team of elite criminals practicing their tactics. 
 
 After she was released in the city of Huntington Beach, Vallejo police called the kidnapping a hoax and erroneously likened it to the book and movie "Gone Girl," in which a woman goes missing and then lies about being kidnapped when she reappears. 
 
 Muller was arrested in an attempted robbery at another San Francisco Bay Area home. Authorities said they found a cellphone that they traced to Muller and a subsequent search of a car and home turned up evidence, including a computer Muller stole from Quinn, linking him to the abduction. 
 
 Huskins sued police, and a judge ruled last year that the lawsuit could proceed. 
 
 "The conduct plaintiffs allege goes beyond defendants being skeptical, investigating alternate theories, and expressing skepticism," U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley wrote in his 22-page decision, adding that, "A reasonable jury could find that defendants engaged in conduct that was extreme and outrageous." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com ||||| As predicted, attorneys for a couple abducted from their home in Vallejo this spring filed a claim against the city of Vallejo and its police department, claiming those officials waged a "waged a vicious and shocking attack on two victims of a terrifying home invasion, kidnapping and rape" by not believing them and telling the public their tale was a hoax. Jodi Hernandez reports. (Published Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015) 
 
 As predicted, attorneys for a couple abducted from their home in Vallejo this spring filed a claim against the city of Vallejo and its police department, claiming those officials waged a "waged a vicious and shocking attack on two victims of a terrifying home invasion, kidnapping and rape" by not believing them and telling the public their tale was a hoax. 
 
 The claim also asserts that Vallejo police bungled the case so badly, that they lost a sex assault medical test to prove that the woman who was kidnapped had been raped twice. 
 
 A claim is a precursor to a lawsuit, and the 26-page document was filed Thursdayby the San Francisco law firm, Kerr and Wagstaffe, on behalf of Denise Huskins and her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, who were kidnapped on March 23 and later set free by their captor or captors. The claim also targets specific officers: Detective Matthew Mustard, Lt. Kenny Park and Officer Garcia, whose first name was not known. 
 
 The story was so wild that Vallejo police said the bizarre events were made up. In fact, the claim uses a March 25 statement made by Park at a news conference when he stated: "Mr. Quinn and Ms. Huskins have plundered valuable resources away from our community, and has taken the focus away from the true victims of our community, while instilling fear amongst our community members. So, if anything, it is Mr. Quinn and Ms. Huskins that owes this community an apology.” 
 
 In July however, the FBI arrested Matthew Muller as the key suspect in the couple’s abduction, though he has not been formally charged in that case. He is being held in a separate matter following a home invasion in Dublin. 
 
 Neither the Vallejo police nor the mayor have publicly apologized to Huskins and Quinn. But the Chief of Police Andrew Bidou did write Quinn and Huskins a letter on July 20, which was submitted as evidence, to "apologize" for the comments made by police, which proved to be "unnecessarily harsh and offensive." Bidou wrote that once Muller has been charged in the Vallejo case, he hopes that the “VPD will make our apology to you public.” 
 
 Park deferred his comments on Thursday to the city of Vallejo. "We have not been served with a lawsuit,” said Joanna Altman, spokesperson for the city of Vallejo. “But it sounds like there's a possibility of pending litigation, so we can't comment.” 
 
 In general, the claim asserts that the police and the city engaged in "malicious and unlawful conduct," "violated the constitutional rights and unfairly destroyed" the couple's reputations through an "outrageous, completely unprofessional and wholly unfounded campaign of disparagement." 
 
 And instead of finding true perpetrator, later identified as Muller, the attorneys said that Huskins, Quinn and the "citizens of Vallejo" deserve justice for the "inexcusable conduct." Some of that conduct, the claim asserts, is that police had incorrectly assumed that Huskins was dead and Quinn killed her, and spent hours interrogating him, when they could have been looking for his girlfriend who was "in the hands of a violent kidnapper." 
 
 Police didn't let Quinn use his phone, which he told them, correctly, would be receiving emails and communications from the kidnappers, the claim asserts. The kidnapper did email and even call Quinn, the claim asserts, but police had put the phone on airplane mode, and the police "missed an opportunity to trace the phone to its South Lake Tahoe locations." As police were "dithering," the claim asserts, Huskins was "sexually assaulted, yet again." The claim asserts that Huskins was raped twice. At a news conference, attorney Jim Wagstaffe said that it is an "unbelievable Gone Girl conspiracy" that Huskins was accused of not telling the truth about her rape, and that it is awful that innocent people were "painted as if they were part of a hoax." 
 
 Muller has not been charged with rape, although the FBI affidavit state that Huskins reported she was sexually assaulted. 
 
 But on page 16, the claim asserts that Vallejo police bungled much of the investigation, including losing Huskins' Sexual Assault Response Team kit. Park said he was told he could not comment on a "pending litigious case." 
 
 The claim also states police failed to return several items back to the couple, including their cars and laptops. Then, in June, the claim asserts that Quinn's home was burglarized of about $5,000, but Vallejo police have "refused to pursue the robbery." 
 
 NBC Bay Area's Jodi Hernandez contributed to this report.
– A California woman whose kidnapping and rape were dismissed by police as a hoax akin to Gone Girl has settled with the City of Vallejo and its police department for $2.5 million, her family tells KGO. In 2015, Denise Huskins and boyfriend Aaron Quinn were drugged inside their home by a masked intruder, who kidnapped the then-30-year-old woman. Huskins was released outside her family's home two days later after being sexually assaulted. At the time, their claims were dismissed by police, who accused Huskins of making up the kidnapping. They only came around after the kidnapper, Matthew Muller, a Harvard-trained attorney and former Marine, was implicated in a different crime. He claimed to be part of a gang of "gentlemen criminals." While police eventually apologized to Huskins and Quinn, a federal judge rejected the city's effort to toss the couple's lawsuit. The settlement was reached Thursday, the AP reports. An attorney for Huskins and Quinn says the couple is "grateful." "One can only hope that the message of this settlement will be that victims are to be believed and that the police will accept a woman’s highly credible report that she was kidnapped and raped," KTVU quotes James Wagstaffe as saying. As part of the settlement, the City of Vallejo admits no wrongdoing. Muller, who pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and even criticized police for not believing Huskins, is serving a 40-year prison sentence.