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GREENSBORO - The city has reached a settlement with a Jamestown woman who alleged in a federal lawsuit that police officers interrogated her for hours in a hotel room, the woman's lawyer said Wednesday.

Nicole Pettiford and her husband, Anthony, sued Greensboro in 2006 for more than $20,000 each.

The Pettifords reached an agreement last week with the city, said S. Camille Payton, who represents the Pettifords. She would not release details of the settlement because of a confidentiality clause.

Payton said she expects the settlement to be completed by the end of the week.

"The lawsuit has been resolved on terms that are acceptable to both parties," Payton said. "We did so to avoid the time and expense of ongoing litigation."

Neither party has admitted any wrongdoing, Payton said.

City attorney Terry Wood said Wednesday that he could not comment on the settlement. The City Council has reviewed the Pettiford case in closed session several times over the past few months, including Tuesday night.

The Pettifords' lawsuit marks the second settlement reached in cases involving the police this year. In April, the city settled a federal lawsuit over retirement benefits for former Deputy Chief Randall Brady, who retired in 2005.

Both cases stem from a time of great turmoil for the police department, including complaints of racial discrimination and an SBI inquiry into possible criminal misconduct by police officials. The scandal forced the resignation of the former chief, David Wray, in early 2006.

In her lawsuit, Pettiford claimed that in November 2004, Detective Scott Sanders saw her coming out of a restaurant with her children and ordered her to come with him. Pettiford left her children with her sister and went with Sanders to the hotel, where she says she was "unlawfully held and detained for six hours, all without warrant, probable cause, or any lawful cause," according to her lawsuit.

Sanders and three other unnamed police officers questioned Pettiford about a suspected leak of information from the police department about an ongoing federal case.

Police officers later searched the Pettifords' home and their vehicles, according to the suit.

Sanders' attorney, Seth Cohen, has called the claims "ridiculous" and "completely untrue" and said that neither Sanders nor his colleagues in the room did anything wrong.

Sanders was indicted in September 2007 on several charges of obstruction of justice in the SBI probe. One of those charges has since been dropped.

He remains suspended from the force; that case is pending.

Nicole Pettiford also claimed in her lawsuit that Sanders harassed her by contacting her workplace, her mother and her bank. She lost her job as a used car salesman, Pettiford said.

Pettiford is now working but is underemployed and hoping to find something better soon, Payton said Wednesday.

"I think that they're both happy to have it behind them," she said.

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.com

Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jennifer.fernandez@news-record.com