"I filed suit because Mr. Ringland passed around a criminal record of someone with the same name as me, but a different date of birth," Murray said. "It was a different person and he purported that it was my criminal record. When I asked him to apologize, he then accused me of additional crimes - election fraud and tampering. When he refused to apologize or withdraw those remarks, I felt I had no recourse to protect my name but to file suit."

In an email received by KOMU on August 25, Alderman Jim Ringland wrote, "I advised her through my attorney that if I felt I had done anything wrong I would have apologized long before she ever asked."

A year ago, the board voted to reimburse Ringland for any legal fees he incurred from Murray's lawsuit.

"I really though it was ill-advised, and not a good use of public money," Murray said.

In the settlement of the lawsuit, Marry asked that Ringland refund the city its money.

"The city paid out $4,598 to date, and several hundred dollars pending that have not been paid," Murray said. "As a result of that agreement, they should be paid."

The city received $3,000 from Ringland's homeowner's insurance policy as a portion of the refund.

"Hopefully he will be forthcoming with the remainder," Murray said. "I made a motion that all legal fees that are recouped be applied to the handicapped children's playground. That motion did pass by a vote of three to one."

Ringland voted no.

In his email to KOMU, Ringland explained he found Murray's suggestion to give the money to the park ironic because he said his wife, "Did all of the groundwork for the park equipment for those physically disadvantaged. Further, when the P&E commission placed any improvement before the board of alderman, Murray and Washington would black ball and sideline it."

This entire legal process took more than a year.

"It's been a long difficult time. I felt like I had to defend myself, and I had done nothing wrong."

Ringland said one of the reasons the lawsuit dragged on was because of Murray.

"Realizing that the city was paying for my fees, we attempted to hustle the process along, to some finality. However, murray refused to do anything until after the election," Ringland said.

Murray won her reelection for Ward One Alderman, but says it was a hard-fought victory.

"I had to counter some extremely negative misinformation that was out there," Murray said.

Murray said she does harbor some resentment.

"There was a time that I believed he initiated this. He created a document of falsehoods and passed it around as mine, and I do, on some level, resent that I had to pay many thousands of dollars to clear my name and get the city reimbursed its money," Murray said.

"In the final analysis, Pamela N. Murray signed the very same document of dismissal, which had been offered to her twice before," Ringland wrote. "But Murray says it wasn't the same paper.

"I never had a document of dismissal presented to me. I do have documents they presented to me in which they basically wanted me to apologize to him for the misunderstanding which I was not going to do."

Instead, Ringland apologized to her.

However, in his email, Ringland wrote, "The words apology and apologize are in there, but so intended to insinuate that I am apologizing for her ineptness in understanding what was being said, and her in ability to comprehend. Her shortcoming is only being able to rationalize things to mean what she wants them to mean."

Regardless, Murray said she feels vindicated.

"I feel like I finally got what I asked for. I am very glad it's over, and I hope it really is over."