Police Abuse Case Ends in Mistrial After ‘Joke’ Remark

A contentious Los Angeles police abuse case ended in a mistrial this week when an attorney for a San Fernando Valley man who had sued the LAPD for false arrest loudly declared during a bench conference that the trial had turned into “a joke.”

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Thomas C. Murphy declared the mistrial at the request of attorney John F. Denove, who was representing plaintiff Robert Booth Nichols in the lawsuit stemming from a 1986 incident at the Palomino nightclub in North Hollywood.

Nichols, who claimed on the witness stand that he worked for nearly two decades on behalf of the CIA, has charged that as a result of his detainment by the LAPD, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department rescinded his concealed weapons permit. That action, Nichols claims, resulted in the loss of Swiss financing for a multimillion-dollar deal to manufacture machine guns for sale to foreign governments.

During seven days of testimony, Los Angeles Assistant City Atty. Robert Seeman questioned Nichols’ credibility by presenting evidence that he had come under suspicion by the FBI during the past 15 years in probes of international money laundering and mob infiltration of the entertainment industry.

Denove made his mistrial motion after expressing exasperation at Seeman’s lengthy cross-examination of Stan Kephart, a former San Jose police officer whom Denove had called to the stand as an expert witness. Denove said later that he told the judge that Seeman had acted improperly by repeatedly asking Kephart irrelevant questions.

Seeman later defended his questioning and noted that Murphy made no reference to misconduct allegations in granting the mistrial.

Murphy refused to say why he decided to grant the mistrial request, citing the fact that the case is due to be retried May 17, his court clerk said.