Local News in Brief : Deputies Get Court Order
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 alleging that they killed a Van Nuys woman.
U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer granted the request from 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.
Yagman represents Mary Postma, mother of Catherine M. Braley, 26, whose bludgeoned, disfigured body was discovered Jan. 15 near bushes surrounding a parking lot in Van Nuys. The 26-year-old Fedco store checker had last been seen the night before at a nearby bar.
Earlier this week, Postma filed a $10-million lawsuit against deputies Robert Waters, Robert Mallen and one other unidentified deputy alleging that Braley left the bar with them and was choked to death after she refused to have sex.
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