Remember that Deutsch Bank Hollywood exec who planned a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the the LAPD because, he said, officers beat him senseless?

Brian Mulligan's story was pretty fantastic: He claimed that police walked up to him in the Eagle Rock-Highland Park area, searched his car, found a lot of cash inside, threw him in a hotel room and, when he tried to flee hours later, beat him to the point where he had to be hospitalized for 15 face and skull fractures.

The real story?

Now audiotape has emerged of Mulligan admitting that he had used the freakout substance better known as bath salts.

He apparently flagged down a Glendale police officer two days before his confrontation with the LAPD, according to TMZ. He told the cop he had been using the once over-the-counter drug and that he believed a helicopter was tracking him.

He called the drug White Lightening.

Cops today were gloating over the revelation, noting that the LAPD always had a different version of events.

They responded to a Jack in the Box drive-thu on Eagle Rock Boulevard about 10:40 p.m. May 14 after receiving reports that someone was trying to break into cars, according to what cops told the Weekly in August.


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After confronting Mulligan, officers concluded he might be under the influence and crazed, but drug-recognition experts couldn't figure out what he might have been on. He told cops he would be okay if allowed to calm down at a nearby hotel, so they let him go.

But police were called back to the area at 1 a.m. based on reports that someone was running through traffic trying to get into moving cars, according to what the department told us in August. Yeah.

When officers arrived, Mulligan allegedly charged them, and he was taken down and arrested on suspicion of felony interference with police. Charges were never filed, however, and he had to be hospitalized as a result of his struggle.

Now comes the gloating.

The L.A. police union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, had a little fun with this told-ya-so in a statement to the Weekly and other outlets this morning:

The truthfulness of many bankers was questioned following the 2008 financial collapse. The tales some of them wove unraveled as they drove the collapse of the financial system. So, what do you get when you cross a user of bath salts with a banker who seeks a payday from the City of Los Angeles? Meet Brian Mulligan …

Tyler Izen, president of the league:

Bath salts lead to delusion, and as in this case, bizarre lawsuits. Hopefully, now that the truth is coming out, instead of continuing to spend his money on lawyers and trying to weave a fictitious tale of abuse at the hands of the LAPD, Mulligan will seek the substance abuse treatment he so clearly needs.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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