Recording of exec alleging LAPD abuse weakens case, union says

On the morning of May 13, a man stopped an officer in the lobby of Glendale police headquarters and asked for help.

"I know this is gonna sound crazy," the man said, "but I feel like there are people following me. I feel like there was a chopper. Do you hear a chopper?"

"We don't have a helicopter up in Glendale," the officer replied.

Over the next 11 minutes, in a conversation the officer recorded, the man explained why he felt "a little paranoid." He'd recently been snorting "white lightning," he said, a type of synthetic drug known as bath salts that can trigger hallucinations and combativeness.

"I've probably used it 20 times," the man said.

The man, police said, turned out to be a managing director and vice chairman at Deutsche Bank, Brian C. Mulligan. He previously served as co-chairman of Universal Pictures and chairman of News Corp.'s Fox Television.

Within days of his exchange with the Glendale officer, Mulligan was laid up in the hospital after a violent ? and highly publicized ? encounter with two Los Angeles Police Department officers.

Mulligan filed a $50-million claim with the city, a precursor to a lawsuit. He alleged that the LAPD officers dragged him to a motel in Highland Park, threatened to kill him if he left, and then, when they discovered he'd escaped, beat him so badly that he suffered 15 fractures to his nose and required dozens of stitches.

Mulligan also contended the officers manufactured a report that painted him as a snarling, thrashing man who told them that he'd recently ingested bath salts and feared he was being chased.

On Monday, officials with the Los Angeles police officers union said the recording undercut Mulligan's version of what happened May 16.

But Mulligan's attorney, Skip Miller, said the similarity between those details and what Mulligan apparently told the Glendale officer was irrelevant to his brutality claim.

"This is about a severe unwanted and illegal beating of Mr. Mulligan," said Miller, who dismissed the statements of the Los Angeles Police Protective League as mudslinging. "We are going to try this case in court in front of a jury and not in the media," he said.

A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment.

The day of the incident in Glendale, Mulligan had been shopping at the Glendale Galleria, he told the unidentified officer, who taped the conversation per department policy. The recording was turned over to the LAPD as part of its use-of-force investigation, said Glendale police Sgt. Tom Lorenz.

During the sometimes rambling exchange, Mulligan mentioned his home in La Ca?ada Flintridge, his wife of 25 years and his two children, one of whom he described as a budding football star. Mulligan said he travels almost weekly to New York and, to help him sleep, he got a prescription for medical marijuana.

"Probably my lawyer will kill me when I say this, but I went to a head shop and I bought some of that white lightning stuff," Mulligan said.

The officer asked Mulligan: Do you mean bath salts?

"I don't know what it is, but it was bad," Mulligan said.

Mulligan said he hadn't used the drugs for about two weeks, but he indicated that he was still feeling shaky.

"How long does this stuff stay in your ? system, man, how's it legal?" he asked.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/latimes/news/local/~3/fH27g7dA6mw/story01.htm

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