The Connecticut Lottery Corp. has absolved its former vice president Chelsea Turner of any wrongdoing and agreed to pay her and her lawyers $450,000 to settle a suit that arose from her suspension and accusations years earlier about wrongdoing by a CLC board member.

The Lottery issued what amounts to an apology to Turner at the close of business Thursday in what it called a ”Joint Statement of The Connecticut Lottery Corporation (“CLC”) and former CLC Vice President Chelsea Turner.”

The statement is part of the settlement of a dispute that arose in 2014, when Turner called a friend in the FBI about suspicions of wrongdoing by the lottery’s then-chairman. Disclosure years later of the tip to the FBI led to Turner’s suspension and eventually to her resignation and her suit against the Lottery. Not long before the joint statement was issued Thursday, an agreement between Turner and the Lottery to dismiss the suit was filed in federal court

The Lottery released a copy of the settlement Friday morning in response to a public records request. Turner agreed to dismissal of the suit and withdrawal of any other claims against the Lottery. In return, the Lottery issued her a check for $269,000 to satisfy her claim of lost wages. It paid $31,000 and $150,000 to her lawyers, Empower Legal Group of West Hartford and Reid and Riege of Hartford.

Turner was placed on leave in July 2019, a week after she testified at an administrative hearing that around 2014 she contacted a friend of hers in the FBI about possible wrongdoing by the Lottery’s then-governing board chairman — and the FBI soon had then-lottery CEO Anne Noble record the former chairman secretly in at least one meeting.

Under the terms of the settlement, the parties agreed to release the joint statement, but not to discuss the matter further.

Among other things, the statement said:

“As reported in the media, CLC placed Ms. Turner on administrative leave after she testified at a public hearing on July 10, 2019, that, in part, she and her supervisor at the time had reported concerns about a Board member of CLC to the FBI. Their confidential report to the FBI occurred in 2014 and no action was taken against the Board member as result of their report.

“As a result of Ms. Turner’s testimony, CLC hired Halloran Sage, LLP, to determine who was aware of the concerns raised by Ms. Turner and what, if anything, those persons did with that information, and whether they complied with applicable ethics reporting obligations. Ms. Turner was not the subject of the report. Halloran issued a report dated December 12, 2019. Based on the information now known to CLC, CLC expressly disagrees with the assertion in the report that Ms. Turner had a ‘profound misunderstanding’ of the state ethics rules,” the statement said.

“CLC agrees with Ms. Turner that her actions fully complied with her obligations pursuant to CLC and Public Officials and State Employees Guide to the Code of Ethics,” the statement said.

“Contrary to press reports at the time, CLC has never considered Ms. Turner’s presence at work to be harmful to the public, the welfare, health or safety of state employees, or any employee,” the statement said. Turner’s 2020 lawsuit claimed that she was put on a paid suspension under a state law that allows employees to be placed on leave “if the employee’s presence at work could be harmful to the public, the welfare, health or safety of patients, inmates or state employees or state property.”

“Finally, CLC acknowledges that Ms. Turner was acting in good faith in her efforts to safeguard CLC from what she believed were unethical practices. CLC and Ms. Turner both agree that she acted properly in approaching the FBI so that her concerns could be vetted by an agency appropriate to address them,” the the statement said.