Woman: Police beat me

A Former Little Balboa Island resident claims Newport Beach police officers knocked her off her front porch and beat her while responding to a call she was screaming that she had been raped, but attorneys for the city allege it was she who committed the assault.

Suzanne Abrams, 34, a former Newport Beach real estate saleswoman, has filed a $15-million civil rights lawsuit alleging the incident has landed her in a psychiatric hospital with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Attorneys for the City of Newport Beach claim police officers did no wrong. In legal papers, the city claims Abrams kicked an officer in the chest and exhibited signs of “extreme intoxication” during the incident.

Abrams was dropped off at her home on Park Avenue after a date in the early morning hours of April 4, 2007 when police responded to her home after getting a call that she was screaming that she was rape, according to her complaint.

Frightened by the presence of male police officers at her home, Abrams asked them to leave, the complaint states.

The officers then “approached [Abrams], grabbed her arms, hit her legs, knocked her off her porch and beat her causing severe injury to her legs, arms and face,” the lawsuit claims.

“The Newport Beach Police officers failed to properly assess me and took no steps to determine whether I had been raped or had been given a ‘date rape drug,’” Abrams claims in court papers. “Instead, I they assaulted and beat me on the front steps of my own home and then arrested me and took me to jail based on unsupported charges, which were later dismissed.”

Abrams was arrested and booked on charges of resisting a police officers and battery on a police officer. The charges were later dismissed, court records show.

In the lawsuit, Abrams claims her father took her to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian after bailing her out of jail, where tests showed she had traces of a “date rape drug” in her system.

Attorneys for the City of Newport Beach claim in court documents that Abrams declined a rape examination at the time of the incident.

In legal papers filed in April, Abrams claims she has incurred nearly $1 million in medical expenses and lost earnings and estimated she will lose more than $3 million in future earnings and $2 million in future medical expenses stemming from the incident.

Abrams was a real estate saleswoman in Newport Beach at one time, but her license expired in February 2008, according to the California Department of Real Estate.