text: Arizona officials who botched an investigation into the rape of a 13-year-old girl - allowing her rapist to continue to assault her for four years - have agreed to pay her $3.5 million. The payout by Maricopa County, which was revealed on Wednesday, comes after it emerged that Patrick Morrison continued to assault the mentally-disabled girl, his niece, and even got her pregnant when detectives failed to properly investigate the case. Her rape was among more than 400 sex-crime cases that were inadequately investigated or not looked into at all by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office over a three-year period ending in 2007. Morrison, from Mesa, first raped his niece Sabrina Morrison in March 2007, and after she told a teacher the following day, authorities performed a rape kit on her. Payout: Sabrina Morrison, pictured left in an interview in 2012, will receive $3.5 million after sheriff's deputies failed to arrest her uncle, Patrick Morrison, right, after he raped her when she was 13 . Even though the kit showed traces of semen, the sheriff's deputies did not collect a blood sample from Patrick Morrison - as requested by the lab - and left him walking the streets. Sabrina's mother, Vikki Morrison, said her daughter was known to make up stories, so when sheriff's deputies told her the rape kit had shown no evidence of a rape, she believed them. 'I was told straight to my face there was no evidence of any trauma or any sexual assault, so we thought she was lying the whole time,' she told CBS5AZ in a 2012 interview. It meant that for the next four years, Morrison continued to rape his niece and even got her pregnant in 2009. But because of physical complications, the baby was aborted. He threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the assaults, Sabrina said as she spoke out about the ordeal in 2012. Her family said she was acting out so badly, that she was sent to live in a group home. Finally, four years after the initial attack, the case was re-opened and deputies gathered the blood sample from Morrison. The following year, he was arrested. Victim: Sabrina, pictured as a child, told a teacher she had been raped when she was 13 but authorities falsely said there was no evidence of the attack. It meant her uncle continued to rape her for four years . Locked up: The case was re-opened in 2011 and Morrison, pictured in court, was sentenced to 24 years . He pleaded guilty to one count of child molestation and two counts of attempted child molestation and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. 'That slipped through the cracks, we did due diligence after the fact that we found out, and we acted on it,' Sheriff Joe Arpaio explained at a Wednesday press conference. But the family was outraged. 'How do you feel when you find out your daughter's been telling you the truth and you didn't know it the whole time?' Vikki Morrison asked in the CBS interview. Sabrina's family filed a lawsuit against the department. The lawsuit alleged that the subsequent attacks on the girl could have been avoided if Arpaio's office arrested the suspect after he first abused her in March 2007. 'An eighth-grader could have solved this case,' attorney Charles Surrano said. 'They sat on the evidence, closed the case and never obtained the sample necessary to have the DNA testing done.' The decision to resolve the lawsuit marks the latest in a long string of legal settlements against Arpaio's office. Anger: Sabrina's mother, Vikki Morrison, said the sheriff's department had told her a rape kit showed there was no trace the teenager had been attacked, so she thought her daughter was lying . The county had previously paid more than $68 million in judgments, settlements and legal fees for the sheriff's office during Arpaio's 22-year tenure. Some settlements resolved lawsuits filed over the treatment of inmates in Arpaio's jails and the sheriff's failed corruption investigations of political foes. The settlement Wednesday applies only to Sabrina Morrison's lawsuit. It's unknown whether other victims in the botched investigations have filed similar lawsuits. The sheriff reflected on the legacy of the botched investigations at a Wednesday news conference, which was called to discuss a recent jail beating. 'We're talking about old history, but sometimes you learn from old history,' Arpaio said of the bungled cases. 'You try to do everything you can to hope that it never happens again.' He said he hopes the settlement money will go toward helping the victim and characterized the case's resolution as a good business decision, considering the girl's family had sought $30 million. Hot water: Her rape was among more than 400 sex-crime cases that were inadequately investigated or not looked into at all by the office of Sheriff Joe Arpaio (pictured) over a three-year period ending in 2007 . The sheriff apologized in December 2011 for the bungled cases, and his office has since said it has moved to clear up the investigation and taken steps to prevent the problem from happening again. An internal review attributed the failures to understaffing and mismanagement. A former supervisor says her investigators were pulled away from time to time to help with training efforts and Arpaio's immigrant-smuggling squad. But Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo said the sheriff failed to apologize to Sabrina Morrison as the settlement was reached, Fox10 reported. 'It's unconscionable that a mentally challenged girl be raped for four years… and law enforcement failed to act,' he said. The sheriff rejected the claim. '[Gallardo has] always been blasting me for the last five years, you don't think he'll say "thank you Sheriff for rescuing all the animals," or "Sheriff we feel sorry for your detectives",' said Arpaio.
target: Patrick Morrison first raped his mentally-disabled niece Sabrina Morrison in 2007 and after she told a teacher, a rape kit was carried out .
  Even though the lab found traces of semen, detectives with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office closed the case and did not arrest Morrison .
  He went on to rape his niece for four years and even got her pregnant, although she aborted the child .
  The case was re-opened in 2011 and he admitted to the attacks .
  It is just one of 400 sex-crime cases that were inadequately investigated by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office over a three-year period .