Judge to Hear Motions in Mel Gibson Arrest Suit

Whether a video of Mel Gibson's 2006 booking at the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station should be shown to a jury will be among the items on which Judge Barbara Scheper is expected to rule today in what could be the final hearing prior to the start of the trial for a deputy's lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department regarding his treatment following Gibson's arrest.

Deputy James Mee, who filed the case in September 2010, alleges that he has been subjected to repeated disciplinary action and overlooked for six to seven other positions, including motorcycle deputy, ever 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 in July 2006 after Gibson was stopped for drunk driving on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. 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.

The trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 14.

Mee's lawyers want the booking video to be shown to the jury. The defense lawyers say it would be prejudicial. They say the same thing about the request by Mee's attorneys to show a public service announcement for the sheriff's department featuring Gibson.

Wearing a sheriff's uniform and standing by a patrol vehicle, Gibson made the PSA on behalf of the children of fallen deputies before his arrest.

"The critical fact that Mel Gibson was a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department brings to light the harassing conduct of [the department] when they ordered [Mee] to delete the anti-Semitic rants," state Mee's attorneys in new court papers filed Thursday. "Mel Gibson was a representative of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department and that explains the circumstances that serve as a backdrop to the harassment and hostile work environment Deputy Mee suffered."

Mee's attorneys say seeing Gibson's PSA will help jurors understand their client's plight.

"Mel Gibson served as the public image of the department in that [announcement] and hence, it is important that the jury hears about it," Mee's lawyers state in their court papers.

—City News Service