Simple Sentences, Please

Rewrite the following sentence using clear, short sentences.
Amy Shannon, former Velera Township police sergeant, who was dropped from the force in 1999 for failing to appear at a departmental hearing, has won an out-of-court settlement in a libel suit she filed in June 1997 against Style Magazine, which, it was charged, published “false and malicious statements” in an article (published in the March 1996 issue) that linked Shannon and half a dozen other officers to an illegal silver smelting business.