Ex-Universal Pictures Co-Chair Breaks Silence on LAPD Beatdown

Brian Mulligan was a straight-laced finance executive who cut deals with Hollywood power players; now he's planning to sue the police and plotting a comeback.

On a Sunday morning in May, a paranoid man walked up to the Glendale police headquarters and began asking a slew of questions. "I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I feel like there are people following me. I feel like there was a chopper -- do you hear a chopper?" the man asked, suspicion seeping through his voice. Informed by an officer that police in the L.A. suburb were not flying any helicopters, he began to waver. "So it's not yours. Do you hear one? I could be nuts."

o began an odd yet polite 11-minute conversation in which then-Deutsche Bank managing director Brian Mulligan, 53, discussed his snorting of bath salts, the addictive and illegal drug that causes feelings of euphoria but also violent delusions. He said that he'd taken the drug about 20 times and asked, "How long does this stuff stay in your f--ing system?" The officer who spoke with Mulligan had a stern warning: "You need to get on top of this before it gets on top of you."

Only a few days later, Mulligan had another run-in with officers -- and this time, the interaction wasn't so cordial. At about 1 a.m. on May 16, Los Angeles Police Department patrol officers discovered the married father of two trying to break into cars in a shabby residential neighborhood in the Highland Park area, according to an LAPD account. When they approached him, he snarled, bared his teeth and attempted to hit an officer. Another officer struck Mulligan with a baton, but Mulligan continued to kick and punch one of the officers until he was placed in an immobilizing restraint and handcuffed. How Mulligan wound up in Highland Park and in a scrape with the LAPD remains murky -- though a lawsuit his attorney plans to file should begin to shed light on the affair -- but what is clear is that the 6-foot-tall Mulligan was no match for the three police officers. His face was battered and bloodied, as revealed in gruesome photographs splashed on TMZ, and his nose was broken in 15 places, requiring emergency surgery (and 54 stitches) at nearby Huntington Memorial Hospital. Only after recent surgery could Mulligan breathe properly.

Mulligan filed a $50 million claim against the LAPD in August, but it was rejected in September (such a claim typically is a precursor to a lawsuit). Now, his lawyer, Skip Miller, is planning to sue the city of Los Angeles in early January for what is likely to be tens of millions of dollars in damages stemming from the incident. "This is going to be a jury trial in federal court for violation of his civil rights -- for beating him to a pulp for absolutely no reason," says Miller. The LAPD declined comment, referring THR to a news release that detailed the May 16 incident.

Speaking out for the first time, Mulligan's wife, Victoria, doesn't doubt her husband, even though she is aware of his struggle with bath salts. "To have something happen like this is a living nightmare for all of us," she says, declining to discuss the May incidents. "But my husband perseveres -- and always comes out on top -- and he deserves it. He is a good guy."

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