Deputy Tells Jury He Was Not Involved in Slaying : Court: He describes a day of drinking but testifies he was not the last person with Van Nuys woman who was killed in 1988.

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy accused of killing a Van Nuys woman after a day of heavy drinking and sex seven years ago told a federal jury Wednesday that he was in no way involved with the woman’s brutal death.

Robert J. Mallon, testifying on the first trial day in a $10-million wrongful-death civil lawsuit filed against him by the victim’s family, described how he and Catherine Braley became intoxicated at The Hunter bar, left together and engaged in sex in his county-owned car. Mallon testified, however, that Braley was alive when she left his car later that night--just hours before her beaten and strangled body was found in a nearby parking lot on Jan. 15, 1988.

“I was not the last person with her,” Mallon, 44, said Wednesday under sometimes intense questioning from Stephen Yagman, a lawyer representing Braley’s family. “The murderer was the last person to be with her.”

Yagman’s questioning led Mallon to describe in detail the events that preceded Braley’s death.

Mallon, who admitted having 16 or 17 drinks while at the bar, said both he and Braley were drunk by the time they left the bar. They went to his car, Mallon said, and kissed and engaged in oral sex. But he said they soon left the area and drove to a nearby spot, where Braley decided to get out.

Yagman said Mallon killed Braley, 26, because he did not want her to leave.

“You didn’t permit her to go, did you?” Yagman said. “You wanted to continue to have sex with her, didn’t you?”

Mallon denied he prevented Braley from leaving the car when she said she wanted to go.

Mallon’s lawyer, Anthony P. Serritella, said in an interview that the Los Angeles Police Department, which investigated the case, never considered his client a murder suspect because the evidence did not point to him. No criminal charges have been filed against Mallon.

“He cooperated fully in their investigation. There’s been no link found by LAPD criminologists,” Serritella said. “He didn’t do it. Their case is built on pure speculation.”

Police said their investigation into the Braley slaying is continuing.

Mallon’s trial comes after a number of legal twists in the case in recent years.

After her death, Braley’s divorced parents, Edward and Mary Postma, filed separate lawsuits against Mallon and two other deputies with him the night Mallon met Braley. The three men met Braley while off duty after attending a funeral for a fellow deputy.

Mary Postma accused the three deputies of violating Braley’s constitutional rights by killing her while acting in their capacity as law officers after she refused to have sex with them. That lawsuit was eventually dismissed.

Edward Postma, who lived in Iowa at the time, filed his wrongful-death suit in federal court, which hears cases pertaining to plaintiffs and defendants from different states.

After Edward Postma’s death, U. S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer granted his widow, Linda Postma, the right to pursue the lawsuit. But in March, 1991, Pfaelzer dismissed the lawsuit against the three deputies, who had argued that there was no evidence linking them to the slaying.

In 1992, the U. S. Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit against Mallon.

Wednesday, Mary Postma and Dena Braley, Catherine Braley’s sister, spent the day in court and said they were relieved to finally see a trial get started.

“I had nearly given up,” Mary Postma said. “I’m real pleased. I’ll be here every day.”