Judge Dismisses Case Against Gay Deputy : Law: Bruce C. Boland was cleared of falsifying an arrest report. The charge prompted accusations of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Tuesday dismissed charges against a gay sheriff’s deputy accused of falsifying a 1989 arrest report, ending a case that had prompted accusations of discrimination and fueled calls for an independent police force in West Hollywood, where he had worked.

Judge Judith L. Champagne granted a motion by prosecutors to drop charges against Deputy Bruce C. Boland. Boland faced a felony charge of preparing false evidence and three related misdemeanor charges.

The case against Boland, 45, appeared weak because the main witness--the man Boland arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia in April, 1989--proved unreliable and because prosecutors were unable to locate several supporting witnesses, Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph D. Shidler said.

“It’s wonderful,” Boland said Tuesday. “It took three years but the truth finally came out and that’s what we were after.”

The criminal proceedings marked the last phase of Boland’s battle to get his job back and clear his name.

He had been fired in April, 1991, as the criminal case made its way through the courts. Early this year, however, the Sheriff’s Department reinstated him, citing new information in the case. Boland agreed at the time to drop a $90-million lawsuit charging the department with discrimination. The department maintained that Boland’s sexual orientation had nothing to do with his firing.

Since his reinstatement, Boland has been assigned to the Sheriff’s Department’s court services division in downtown Los Angeles. A West Hollywood resident, he worked out of the West Hollywood Sheriff’s station for three of his six years on the force.

Boland’s attorney in the criminal case, Thomas Russell Hunter, stopped short of accusing officials of anti-gay bias, but he said Boland seemed to have been singled out for unusually harsh treatment by the department and prosecutors.

“Had Boland been gay, straight or a cocker spaniel, it was a bad case,” Hunter said.

Prosecutors said that the case was handled no differently than similar allegations against other law enforcement officers.

Shidler said that the man Boland arrested was considered a weak witness because he had made statements recently contradicting his previous accounts of Boland’s handling of the arrest. His earlier testimony had given prosecutors reason to contend that Boland lacked sufficient grounds for an arrest, making any inaccuracies in his report far more serious, Shidler said.

Because of errors in Boland’s account of the arrest, prosecutors were forced to drop the drug case. In his report, Boland erroneously said he found a bag of syringes at the feet of the suspect in the front seat when actually the bag had been had been in the back seat with another man, who was not charged. The bag belonged to the suspect.

Boland maintained the error was unintentional and said that he had reported the mistake to prosecutors handling the case as soon as he discovered it. Boland claimed the incident was blown out of proportion and was being used to force him out of his job because he is gay. He appealed his firing to the Civil Service Commission and filed the discrimination suit.

In reinstating Boland, the department said new information indicated that he had not falsified the report deliberately or tried to cover up his mistake.

In West Hollywood, where relations between the city’s large gay community and the Sheriff’s Department have sometimes been uneasy, some of the political leaders rallied to Boland’s side. Mayor Paul Koretz met with Sheriff Sherman Block and Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner in an effort to get Boland reinstated and the charges dropped. Residents made plans to raise money to help pay Boland’s legal bills until Boland stopped them.

The case also provided fodder for a current petition drive originating in the gay community seeking a voter initiative for an independent city police department. Critics have contended that the Sheriff’s Department, which has a $9-million annual contract with the city, discriminates against homosexuals in hiring and does not pay enough attention to anti-gay hate crimes.