Caught On Tape: 'Paranoid' Bank Exec Admits Using Bath Salts To LAPD
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Authorities have released an audio recording of an exchange between officers and a Deutsche Bank executive, who's suing the LAPD for allegedly using excessive force.
In the recording, Brian Mulligan can be heard speaking with a Glendale police officer. He admits to having taken marijuana and having ingested bath salts, also known as "white lightening," a couple days earlier. Bath salts are known to make users violent and delusional.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League is distributing the tape, recorded on May 13, to counter Mulligan's claims that, two days later, he was the victim of a brutal and unprovoked attack by officers in Eagle Rock.
The 52-year-old was arrested that night following a confrontation with police.
Mulligan's former attorney, Michael Flanagan, said his client suffered a tremendous blow to the face that left the bank executive with 15 fractures to his nose and required 54 stitches to close up the lacerations.
Flanagan filed a $50 million lawsuit against the LAPD for excessive use of force. He claimed officers lied in their police report; they wrote that Mulligan admitted using bath salts and marijuana in order to justify their violent attack.
The recording paints a differing picture:
"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?" Mulligan can be heard telling a Glendale police officer.
"We don't have a helicopter up in Glendale; we don't come up until 9 o'clock," an officer responds.
"Okay, maybe I'm nu… I could be nuts, I - I, uh… I guess," Mulligan said.
"You taking any medication or you diagnosed with anything?" the officer said.
"No, no, no, I'm not, I'm, I am… I am a little paranoid," Mulligan said.
"Probably my lawyer will kill me when I say this, but I-I went to a head shop and I bought some of that white lightning stuff...," Mulligan said.
"Did you snort it?" the officer said.
"Yes," Mulligan said.
"Bath salts?" the officer said.
"I don't know what it is, but it was bad," Mulligan said.
"When's the last time you used it?" the officer said.
"Uh, two weeks ago?" Mulligan said.
"How many times have you used it?" the officer said.
"I've probably used it 20 times," Mulligan said.
The L.A. Police Protective League said the recording proves Mulligan is the liar, and not police.
"He said two days before encountering officers on that audio tape, that he had ingested bath salts and that it was a problem," said Tyler Izen of the Protective League.
No one answered at Mulligan's La Canada home Monday. His new lawyer, Skip Miller, said that after his confrontation with the LAPD Mulligan "was tested at the hospital and no bath salts were found in his system," regardless of what he said on the tape with Glendale police.
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