Artist Kent Twitchell settled his lawsuit against the U.S. government and 12 other defendants for painting over his 70-foot tall landmark mural of Ed Ruscha at Olympic and Hill downtown in 2006. His lawyers at Sheldon Mak Rose & Anderson say the settlement amount – $1.1 million – "is believed to be the largest settlement ever under the seldom-invoked Federal Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) or the California Art Preservation Act (CAPA)... [which] forbid desecration, alteration, or destruction of certain public works of art without prior notice to the artist to allow for removal." The government will kick in $250,000 of the settlement.

* Lives on: The mural is still viewable on Google Maps' street view, proving either that Google never forgets, or if you prefer, is slow to catch up. (Google Maps has yet to fix its Van Nuys bug, as of today.) The Ruscha mural is gone from the birds-eye view on LiveSearch Maps.

LAT chases with four grafs.

Previously on LA Observed:
Downtown's Ed Ruscha mural gone