2 Officers Awarded $100,000 in Dismissal of Frivolous Lawsuit

Two Burbank police officers have been awarded $100,000 each from a man whose lawsuit charging them with brutality was dismissed by a judge as frivolous, authorities said Friday.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge entered the judgment Jan. 4 in favor of Detective Brian R. Arnspiger and Sgt. Patrick V. Lynch after the defendant, Kent Allen Kelley II, failed to contest the suit. The officers were told of the decision Thursday in a letter from their attorney.

“We’re happy because it’s taken so long and we’re finally vindicated,” Arnspiger said. “When something like that happens, it kind of digs at you.”

The officers, claiming malicious prosecution, countersued Kelley in 1985 after a Burbank Superior Court judge threw out the man’s lawsuit alleging the officers brutalized him and robbed him during his arrest at a Burbank bar in December, 1980. Police had received a call that Kelley was drunk and was trying to pick fights and gamble at the pool table, Arnspiger said.

Among other things, Kelley’s suit alleged that the officers handcuffed him too tightly and threw him against the steel bars of a cell at the Burbank jail.