BUFFALO, N.Y. — An attorney who solicited clients in the
immediate aftermath of a plane crash in Clarence last February has
settled his case with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Detroit, Mich., attorney Carl L. Collins III paid a sum of
$5,000 to settle the civil action, according to U.S. Attorney
Kathleen Mehltretter on Monday.

Mehltretter said the attorney sent letters to victims’ families
just 12 days after the accident; federal law prohibits attorneys
from soliciting clients within 45 days of an air carrier accident.
Collins sent an unspecified number of letters to the families of
victims of the Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash near Buffalo on Feb.
12.

Victims of the crash included Kristin Safran of Bradford,
Pa.

A civil complaint was filed against Collins in September 2009 in
the District Court for the Western District of New York.

In August, the U.S. Attorney’s Office entered into a similar
settlement agreement with New Jersey attorney Richard Weiner for
improperly soliciting the families of accident victims as well.

Mehltretter said, “This statute was set in place to prevent
grieving families of air carrier crash victims from being subjected
to attorney solicitations during an extremely difficult time in
their lives. It is our hope that these settlements will place
attorneys across the country on notice that a violation of this
statute will not be tolerated.”

All 49 people on board the plane and one person on the ground
were killed when the plane crashed. The plane was on automatic
pilot just before it went into a dive, and the possibility of pilot
inattention is being considered by the National Transportation
Safety Board in an investigation of the crash.