La Cañada bank executive who clashed with LAPD seeks $50 million
By sunrise, the bank executive was laid up in the hospital, his face swollen, the result of a late-night confrontation with two LAPD officers in Highland Park.
That much, everyone agrees on.
But nearly everything else that happened that May night to Brian C. Mulligan, a managing director and vice chairman at Deutsche Bank, remains in dispute.
The officers said they had to use force to subdue a snarling, thrashing man who arched his back, waved his arms, stiffened his fingers like claws and charged them on a residential street, according to a police report viewed by The Times.
One of Mulligan’s attorneys, J. Michael Flanagan, offered a more bizarre version of events: that the officers dragged Mulligan to a down-market motel and threatened to kill him if he left. When they discovered that Mulligan had escaped, his attorney said, the officers beat him so badly that he suffered 15 fractures to his nose and needed dozens of stitches.
Mulligan has filed a claim with the city, a precursor to a lawsuit, that lists at least $50 million in damages. Since the confrontation, Mulligan’s nasal passages “no longer operate correctly,” and he’s struggled to work and maintain relationships with his family, the claim said. No charges have been filed against Mulligan, though a spokesman for the city attorney’s office, which handles misdemeanor crimes, said the incident was under review.
Mulligan is a longtime Hollywood money man and deal maker who has served as co-chairman of Universal Pictures, chief financial officer of Seagram, Universal’s former owner, and chairman of News Corp.’s Fox Television.
Mulligan, 53, joined Deutsche Bank in 2009. He lives in upscale La Cañada Flintridge, less than 10 miles from the grittier Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park.
Ashley Powers and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times