Mel Gibson Likely Won't Testify in Trial

A judge said Tuesday she is inclined to disallow the testimony of Mel Gibson and Sheriff Lee Baca in the trial for a lawsuit brought by a deputy who claims he was mistreated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department after he arrested the Oscar winner for drunken driving on Malibu's Pacific Coast Highway in 2006.

Judge Barbara Scheper said she did not believe the testimony of Baca or Gibson would be relevant to Deputy James Mee's claims, but that she would reconsider if necessary.

Scheper also issued tentative rulings preventing Mee's lawyers from showing the jury a public service announcement Gibson made on behalf of the department three years before his arrest. She also said she is leaning toward keeping out the video of Gibson being booked at the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff's Station.

Scheper said she would give final rulings just before the trial starts next week on Tuesday.

The PSA includes Gibson, wearing a sheriff's uniform and standing by a patrol vehicle while speaking on behalf of the children of fallen deputies. Defense attorneys say showing the video would be prejudicial and confuse jurors concerning the actual issues, but Mee's lawyers say the panel should see the announcement.

"Mel Gibson is the face of the Sheriff's Department," Mee's attorney Yael Trock told the judge on Tuesday.

A skeptical Scheper responded, "One public service announcement makes him the face of the department?"

Mee, who filed the case in September 2010, is the trial's first scheduled witness. He alleges that he has been subject to repeated disciplinary action and overlooked for six to seven other positions, including motorcycle deputy, since he complained to his bosses that Gibson received preferential treatment.

Mee, who is Jewish, says Gibson subjected him to an anti-Semitic rant when he took the Oscar-winning actor/director into custody. The deputy says he was ordered to delete the offensive remarks from his report and take part in a "coverup of a known representative of the Sheriff's Department," according to his lawyers' court papers.

—City News Service