Accept Suit in Slaying, Judge Orders Deputies

Two undercover Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies have been ordered by a federal judge to appear today in Whittier so that an attorney can serve them with a lawsuit naming them as the killers of a Van Nuys woman.

U. S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer granted the request of attorney Stephen Yagman, who argued that he had been unable to serve the men with the suit because the Sheriff’s Department would not cooperate or identify them as deputies.

“The Sheriff’s Department has been denying that they are deputies,” Yagman said after the hearing. “This order will make them fess up and produce these people to be served.”

Under federal law, a defendant in a lawsuit must be served with a copy of the complaint before the case can move forward. It is a policy of the Sheriff’s Department not to name or divulge information about undercover deputies because of the sensitivity of their work, sheriff’s officials have said.

“There is one consideration that they have to protect their undercover narcs,” Yagman said. “There is another consideration that the government should not lie.”

Yagman represents Mary Postma, mother of Catherine M. Braley, whose bludgeoned and mutilated body was discovered Jan. 15 near bushes beside the parking lot of the county’s Crisis Management Center in the 8100 block of Sepulveda Boulevard. The 26-year-old Fedco store checker had last been seen the night before at a nearby bar called The Hunter.

Earlier this week, Postma filed a $10-million lawsuit against Deputies Robert Waters, Robert Mallen and an unidentified deputy, alleging that they violated Braley’s constitutional rights with excessive police violence.

The suit alleges that Braley left The Hunter with the deputies, refused to have sex with them and was choked to death. The suit claims that the deputies, who were drunk, panicked and attempted to cover up the cause of death by beating and mutilating Braley’s body, then dumping it in the crisis center parking lot.

‘Circumstantial Evidence’

Los Angeles police, who are investigating, have repeatedly said that no deputies are suspects in the case but have not commented further on the details of the lawsuit. Yagman said the murder scenario outlined in the lawsuit is based on “a mass of circumstantial evidence” accumulated from Postma and other people with knowledge of the case.

Pfaelzer ordered the Sheriff’s Department to produce the deputies at 3 p.m. today at a department training academy in Whittier so that Yagman can serve them with the lawsuit.

Yagman said he intends later to seek a court order to obtain blood samples from the deputies for comparison with evidence found at the scene of the murder. He said he also may have to seek another court order to serve the third deputy with the lawsuit, once that deputy’s identity is known.

“As soon as I take the depositions of the first two, I’ll get the third guy’s name,” Yagman said.