Charlottesville police and topless protester settle lawsuit

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – A lawsuit has been settled between police and a woman who was arrested for exposing her breasts during August’s deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Daily Progress reported Thursday that the undisclosed settlement agreement was reached this week. The financial terms are confidential. But the officers acknowledge they were in the wrong.

Police arrested Morgan Hopkins on indecent exposure charges Aug. 12. She and others removed their shirts to protest society’s differing treatment of male and female breasts.

The indecent exposure charge was later dismissed in Charlottesville General District Court

Hopkins’ attorney, Jeff Fogel, said Virginia’s indecent exposure statute does not differentiate between men and women and that nudity itself is not indecent exposure.

He said the offence requires either obscenity or an “appeal to the prurient interest.”

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Information from: The Daily Progress, http://www.dailyprogress.com