He was spat on during BLM protest by a white woman. Civil suit settlement 'disappointing.'

It wasn't the outcome the man once known as Eric Lucas or his lawyer were expecting.

Lucas was 18 when he filed a civil suit against Stephanie Rapkin, a lawyer from Shorewood who spat on him during a Black Lives Matter protest in the summer of 2020.

A jury last month supported Lucas' civil claim, charging Rapkin with assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, court records show.

The parties also reached a settlement, but details of it are confidential.

Attorney William Sulton, who represented Lucas, who is now 22, described the civil settlement as "less than we anticipated."

"It was surprising and disappointing, given the evidence we had," Sulton said of the civil verdict. "Much of it included the exhibits that were presented during the criminal trial just a year earlier.

The publicity from the spitting incident prompted Lucas to file paperwork to legally change his name in July 2023. His name-change application was granted in August. The Journal Sentinel is not using his new name to maintain his privacy.

"We had video of her spitting in a person's face ... but this jury came to the verdict that it came to."

In contrast, a jury in the criminal trial found Rapkin guilty of misdemeanor disorderly conduct after a three-day trial in April 2023. She was 67 at the time of the conviction. Videos of the spitting incident surfaced soon after it occurred on June 6, 2020.

Milwaukee County prosecutors at one point considered including a hate crime modifier with the charge, which could have subjected her to stiffer punishment.

A judge sentenced Rapkin to a year of probation, but she instead requested to serve 60 days in jail .

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: He was spat on during BLM protest by a white woman. Civil suit settlement 'disappointing.'