Woman Files 2nd Suit Against Costa Mesa and Former Officer

A former Huntington Beach resident on Friday filed a second lawsuit against Costa Mesa and a former reserve police officer, claiming the officer violated her civil rights by propositioning her, offering to get a drunk-driving charge against her dismissed.

Bonita Lynn Logsdon charged in her Superior Court suit that the city also negligently supervised and negligently hired Michael Thayer, 25, for police work.

Logsdon filed a similar civil rights suit, naming the same defendants, last September in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Neither suit specifies the amount of damages sought, but an earlier claim filed with the city sought $1 million.

Both suits allege that Thayer asked Logsdon for a date while driving her to jail on a drunk-driving charge on Dec. 11, 1983, and “on at least five occasions” afterwards he “repeatedly propositioned (her) to engage in intimate personal relations in return for the dismissal of criminal charges.”

The charge against Logsdon was dismissed Jan. 3, 1984, after she had taped, with the Orange County district attorney’s approval, one of Thayer’s telephone conversations with her and took it to the city, according to Richard Repici, her attorney.

Thayer resigned from the part-time job he had held for 10 months in the face of disciplinary action, Police Chief Roger Neth said after the first suit was filed. He said then that prosecutors did not have enough evidence for any prosecution.

Repici said the suit in state court is a “back-up” to the federal action, filed in case the federal suit is dismissed for any reason.

“I don’t think our wives and daughters and sisters and mothers should wait until they get sexually assaulted before they have a civil rights violation,” Repici said. “I think it should include harassment and conspiracy.”