First settlement reached over rock attack in 311 Boyz case

Wednesday, March 22, 2006 | 7:08 a.m.

Three young men, one whose face was crushed by alleged members of the 311 Boyz gang, will split $500,000 from an insurance company in a partial settlement of their lawsuit, sources close to the case said.

The civil suit was filed by teenager Stephen Tanner Hansen and two friends who were with him after they tried to leave a party at a Summerlin house in 2003. Someone trying to stop them threw a rock through the windshield of the car the teens were in, hitting Hansen and disfiguring him.

The payment will only settle claims against Les Rose, a co-owner of the home, and his son, who threw the party.

Hansen's attorney, Jerome Bowen, confirmed that a settlement has been reached with the Roses, but would not comment on the specifics of the agreement.

Sources said a deal was in the works to settle with the other co-owners of the home, Brenda and Michael Flank.

Calls made by the Sun to Rose's attorney, Mark Anderson, and the attorney representing the Flanks, Valerie Fujii, were not returned Tuesday.

Attorney Steve Caruso, who represents alleged 311 Boyz members Brandon Gallion and Anthony Gallion in the civil case, said the settlement will not lead him to settle as well, but he understood why the Roses and Flanks would settle.

"We're going forward, but the people that settled should have settled," Caruso said. "You can't buy a house in a nice neighborhood to speculate for money and allow kids to have wild parties, it's really that simple."

It was the first settlement in the case, which names more than a dozen other people as defendants.

The settlement surpasses the $300,000 settlement reached in 2004 in a civil lawsuit involving a teenage party at a house in Seven Hills. In 2003 a 16-year-old who had been drinking at the party drove away with four friends and crashed. Three of his passengers were killed.

That settlement was between the homeowners' insurance company and the victims' families.

Several members of the 311 Boyz, described by police as a gang of white suburban teenagers with ties to Centennial High School, were charged in the attack as well as in other incidents, and most reached plea deals to serve house arrest or pay fines, with a few serving jail terms.

In the civil suit, Hansen is a plaintiff along with his parents, two of his friends who were with him the night of the attack, Craig Lefevre and Joe Grill, and their parents.

In addition to the Gallions, Jeff Hart, Matthew Costello, Christopher Farley, Steven Gazlay, Dominic Harriman, Ernest Aguilar and Scott Morse were named as defendants in the civil complaints along with their parents and guardians. Several other teens who were allegedly at a party the night of the rock attack are also named.

The suit also seeks to hold the parents of the alleged gang members individually accountable for the actions of their children.

Caruso said depositions are ongoing in the case.