Sasha Rodriguez's Post-EDC Rave Death: Parents Settle With Promoter, L.A. Coliseum
Sasha Rodriguez / Facebook
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The parents of Sasha Rodriguez, a 15-year-old girl who died of an ecstasy overdose after attending 2010's Electric Daisy Carnival rave at the L.A. Coliseum, have come to a settlement with the venue and the promoter after they filed suit alleging negligence.
A notice of the settlement was filed this week, but formal paperwork still has to be signed and submitted to court by the end of June, plaintiff's attorney Steven Archer told the Weekly.
The terms or possible cash amount were not revealed. Archer would only say that ...
... there was indeed an undisclosed cash payment forthcoming as part of the deal:
All those named in the settlement, including the publicly run Coliseum, Insomniac, the promoter of EDC, and former Coliseum events manager Todd DeStefano, would be off the hook after papers are signed, Archer said:
The settlement is a global settlement against all defendents.
The suit originally asked for $5 million.
Archer said that one good outcome of the tragedy is the focus on the Coliseum and its issues:
It's a shame that it took the death of a 15-year-old girl to draw the light of justice and attention to what was going on at the Coliseum. My clients are confident that the continuing criminal and civil litigation will bring to light even more information and lead to even more changes.
DeStefano, Insomniac chief Pasquale Rotella, and another rave promoter, Go Ventures' Reza Gerami, were indicted for alleged bribery in a scandal that erupted following Rodriguez's death. All of the above have pleaded not guilty and maintained innocence.
The allegations are that DeStefano was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in under-the-table payments from rave promoters.
But more issues came to light, including allegations that union hands received cash payments for working some events and, more recently, that a porn video was filmed at the Coliseum, apparently without the knowledge of management.
Archer told us last year that settlement talks were slow going with the defendants. We asked him if something had changed and he said yes, but that he couldn't divulge what it was.
All hell broke loose for Coliseum leaders after Rodriguez died in the days following the June, 2010 EDC party that attracted more than 140,000 over two days.
The event was supposed to only allow those 16 and older inside the venue. The promoter later vowed to switch to an 18-and-older policy.
Still, public officials questioned why raves were held at the Coliseum and, ultimately, they were shut out.
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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