HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy who famously arrested Mel Gibson for DUI in 2006 has sued his own department, claiming he’s the victim of retaliation because he refused to remove the actor’s anti-Semitic slurs from the arrest report, TMZ reports.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Deputy James Mee says he has not been awarded promotions to a traffic investigator or motorcycle deputy position because of the alleged discrimination. He is seeking unspecified damages for loss of income, benefits, medical expenses and for emotional distress and mental suffering.
The lawsuit alleges that Gibson is a close friend of Sheriff Lee Baca and other top officials.
Mee, who is Jewish, was the subject of a criminal investigation into the leaking of the initial arrest report, which was published by TMZ.
"My client is being retaliated against because he is a Jewish deputy," Mee’s lawyer Etan Z. Lorant told People. "He was the most logical person for the police to investigate, but they didn’t look into any other deputies. They started with him and ended with him, even though other deputies had access to the report. They should’ve kept investigating."
Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore denied the allegations.
"We are looking forward to telling the whole story and the whole story is not being told in this lawsuit," he told TMZ. "Ethnicity and gender have nothing to do with any of this. An investigation was launched by the Sheriff’s Department to try and discover who was leaking official documents without authorization. That is a crime."
