“The fact that he paid one kid off with a huge sum of money is basically enough on it’s own.”
It certainly was suspicious, but it’s possible he just took bad legal advice to settle quickly. Lots of bad lawsuits get settled quickly that way. Did you see this one?
http://www.insidebayarea.com/localnews/ci_12614430
With the amount he had to pay lawyers, I doubt he got bad legal advice.