SOUTH SIDE Civil suit dismissed in shooting case after out-of-court settlement is made

Tommy Williams is serving 18 years to life in prison for killing Michael Booker.
YOUNGSTOWN -- A civil lawsuit filed over an April 2000 shooting death outside a South Side bar has been settled out of court and will be dismissed.
Atty. Damian Billak, who represents Pal Joey's bar, said terms of the settlement are confidential.
The suit was filed in April 2001 by Stacy Kello of North Belle Vista Avenue, who is administrator of the estate of Michael P. Booker. It sought $5 million in damages from Pal Joey's and from Tommy Williams, who is in prison for killing Booker.
Billak said Kello was Booker's girlfriend and the mother of his child. The civil case was set for trial this week in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
What happened
Authorities said Booker saw a Campbell man punch a girl outside the East Midlothian Boulevard bar and he got into a fistfight with the man.
Witnesses said Williams rushed forward from a crowd that had gathered to watch the fight, put a pistol to Booker's ribs, shot him and ran away.
A common pleas court jury convicted Williams of murder in September 2001 and a judge sentenced him to 18 years to life in prison.
The civil suit, also in common pleas court, said Pal Joey's was negligent in allowing Williams and others to bring firearms onto the premises and for failing to contact authorities once people became aware that Williams had threatened Booker and that a fight had broken out.