Features

SAN FRANCISCO — Sonoma County will pay $1 million to the family of a woman killed by her estranged husband even though she had a restraining order against him and repeatedly appealed for sheriff’s deputies to enforce it. 

Under the settlement, announced Tuesday in federal court, county officials do not admit either negligence or wrongdoing. 

Those were the claims of the family of Maria Teresa Macias, 36, who was shot by her abusive husband in April 1996 as she was heading with her mother to a housecleaning job in Sonoma. 

Macias, who was born in Mexico, approached sheriff’s deputies at least nine times in the weeks before she was killed asking them to shield her from her husband’s stalking and threats — as her restraining order mandated. 

Lawyers for her mother and three children sought $15 million on the principle that the sheriff’s department was liable for Macias’ death because it did not intervene.