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imum-security prison were spent “working out, Zils Gagne said her run-ins with the law and work
exercising and reading a lot of books. I read self- as a former town councilwoman meant “I was in the
help books and romance novels and even real estate paper a lot.”
books. I read three books at a time.” Zils Gagne said she’d consider moving to southern
Zils Gagne didn’t have a cell, rather a room with California, where she went to college, after her chil-
seven bunk beds that could hold 14 women. “They dren have both graduated high school. Her daughter,
treated me OK. Half of the people there were for who wants to be an actress, is a high school fresh-
white-collar crimes: a lot of doctors, lawyers and ac- man, and her son is in seventh grade.
countants.” “I might want to write a book, that’s a possibility,”
Today, as she is in home confinement, officials she said. “It would be on my experiences and exactly
call her upward of six times a day “to see if I am what happened.”
home. They allow me to do recreation time 45 min- ¦

utes a day, three times a day. I’ll walk my dogs, do Robert Storace covers legal trends, lawsuits and
yard work and they let me take my kids to school. analysis for the Connecticut Law Tribune. Follow
Once a week I can go grocery shopping,” said Zils him on Twitter @RobertSCTLaw or reach him at
Gagne. 203-437-5950.

A Group of Yale Law Students Just Clinched
a Government Settlement for Military Vets

By Robert Storace

Representing lead plaintiffs—Army veterans
Steve Kennedy and Alicia Carson—in a class
action lawsuit that could affect tens of thou-
sands of Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans were
four interns from Yale Law School.
And on Tuesday those interns reached a prelimi-
nary settlement with the U.S. Army.
The crux of the class action is that veterans—
many of them with post-traumatic stress disorder,
traumatic brain injury, military sexual trauma, or
other behavioral health issues—have received less-
than-fully honorable discharges from the military
since 2001. Shutterstock

With the help of the interns with the Veterans Le- March 2009 to attend his own wedding, and had his
gal Service Clinic within the Jerome N. Frank Legal discharge status downgraded to less-than-honor-
Services Organization at Yale Law School, and at- able.
torneys from Jenner & Block, Kennedy and Carson The preliminary settlement—which is not mon-
filed Kennedy v. McCarthy in April 2017. Ryan Mc- etary—among other things, calls on the Army
Carthy was acting secretary of the Army at the time. Discharge Review Board to either automatically
Kennedy, who had behavioral health conditions, reconsider or let veterans know they can send in
went AWOL, or absent without official leave, in
¦ Continued on PAGE 22

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