Judge rejects executive’s suit against L.A. Police Protective League

A judge has tossed out the claims of a former Hollywood deal-maker and banking executive that the Los Angeles police union conspired to retaliate against him for suing LAPD officers.

In an order issued this week, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner found Brian Mulligan fell far short of making a legitimate legal case in his lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

Mulligan’s allegations against the union were part of a broader story of abuse and conspiracy the onetime Deutsche Bank vice president leveled against the LAPD and the union in a lawsuit after his arrest by LAPD officers in May 2012.

Officers responding to reports of a man trying to get into locked cars came upon Mulligan in the street and stopped him. In Mulligan’s car, an officer found what appeared to be bath salts, a synthetic substance that is not illegal, but can cause powerful reactions similar to cocaine when ingested, according to a Police Commission report.

Although they noticed he was “sweating profusely and appeared unsteady,” the officers determined that Mulligan was not drunk or under the influence of illegal drugs. Mulligan asked the officers to take him to a motel, according to accounts given by the officers and a police supervisor who was at the scene. They agreed, dropping him off at one nearby.

About an hour later, the same officers saw Mulligan “screaming and dragging a metal trash can in the street,” police reports show. Mulligan ran from the officers, according to the LAPD’s official account of the incident. The officers pursued him and claimed that Mulligan charged at them. The officers said they pushed him to the ground and kicked and struck him in the torso with a baton, according to police records.

Mulligan’s nose was broken in several places and his shoulder blade was fractured. The Police Commission found the officers’ use of force was justified.

Mulligan had a different version of the encounter. He said the officers took him to the motel against his will and attacked him when he fled, beating him in the face and on the head and deliberately breaking his shoulder blade. He accused the officers of fabricating their arrest report.

After Mulligan announced plans to seek millions in damages from the officers and LAPD, the union released a recording that an officer in nearby Glendale made when Mulligan struck up a conversation with him a few days before his arrest. Sounding agitated and paranoid, Mulligan admitted to the officer that he was using a potent type of bath salts.

The recording, the union said in a press release, discredited Mulligan and showed he was trying to “shake down” the Police Department.

Mulligan expanded his lawsuit, charging that city and union officials conspired to obtain and release the recording as part of a plan to scare him off from pursuing his lawsuit.

Klausner put an end to that line of argument, saying that Mulligan had not shown any indication that the union’s actions were anything other than a private organization’s effort to defend the officers’ reputations and the public’s faith in the LAPD.

Mulligan’s attorney, Skip Miller, declined to comment on the judge’s ruling.

joel.rubin@latimes.com