Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : CITIES : Newport Police Coping With Tarnished Image

More than 100 suits and claims alleging excessive force have been filed against the Newport Beach Police Department in the last eight years.

Earlier this year, a management audit urged that Newport police officers’ overzealous enforcement approach be reviewed. The new police chief, Arb Campbell, said that improving his department’s reputation would be one of his major goals.

That effort was dealt a severe, and potentially expensive, blow last week when a federal judge ruled in a lawsuit against the city that officers used “excessive force” in dealing with a drunk-driving suspect in February, 1985.

The suspect, Steven Nick Bohunis, 28, who lived in Costa Mesa at the time, is suing for $10 million.

According to a police report, Bohunis swerved his car to avoid another and skidded down a 70-foot embankment on Jamboree Road.

The report described Bohunis as “semi-coherent” and “uncooperative” and stated that officers twice used choke holds to render him unconscious.

Bohunis, who had refused to take an alcohol breath test at the police station, was taken by police to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, where six officers held him down while a nurse drew a blood sample, according to the report.

Bohunis’ attorney, Stephen Yagman, said the sample revealed Bohunis’ blood-alcohol level to be 0.22%, far above the 0.10% at which a driver is presumed by law to be intoxicated.

The hospital reached an out-of-court settlement with Bohunis last April, a hospital spokeswoman said. Yagman said the hospital’s payment to Bohunis was $10,000.

U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. also ruled that the amount of damages awarded to Bohunis should be determined after a trial, but he did not set a trial date.