Mulligan's take on what happened early in the morning of May 16 diverges sharply from leaked reports by the Los Angeles Police Department that depicted the major Hollywood player and former banker, who was then the vice chairman of Deutsche Bank's media and telecom investment banking group, as having ingested marijuana and being high on designer drugs known as bath salts. Not only was Mulligan completely sober, his complaint contends, but he proved as much through a battery of "sobriety/drug tests: the neurological Romberg evaluation, the one-leg standing test, and pupil and pulse checks."

The suit also contests police-report assertions that, when chased by two officers in the Highland Park section of Northeast L.A., the then 52-year-old banker "abruptly turned around and took a combative stance, by arching has back, holding up both arms above his head, and contorting his hands in a claw-like manner while simultaneously baring his teeth and snarling." Mulligan claims instead he was merely fleeing a motel room in which LAPD officers James Nichols and John Miller had ordered him to spend the night.

"He feared that he was being set up in some kind of scheme," the complaint says of Mulligan's being forced to register in a cheap motel -- even though it was within easy driving distance to his home La Canada-Flintridge -- after demonstrating his sobriety. "So he waited for approximately ten minutes, then looked for the officers outside the room. Seeing that they had left, Mulligan was able to obtain his car keys from the clerk."

Before making it to his car, however, Mulligan was recaptured. The suit then charges officers Nichols and Miller with beating his face to a pulp, presumably as punishment for disobeying their order for him and the $3,000 in cash on his person to stay at the motel. That's when, if possible, things got even uglier. Sitting on the curb, with his hands handcuffed behind his back, Mulligan claims to have felt Nichols' baton between his arms.

"You're going to die tonight of a heroin overdose," the officer allegedly told his captive while torqueing the baton up with such force as to break Mulligan's scapula. Moreover, just as this was occurring, officer Miller supposedly "jabbed Mulligan in the back," giving credence to the notion of a heroin injection. The complaint contends the cops went on to repeat the exercise, with Nichols going so far as to tell Mulligan they were giving him "some more heroin."

The brutality of the altercation has been documented in widely displayed photos of Mulligan taken right after his face-crushing encounter with the LAPD officers. His nose, broken in 15 places, required 54 stitches in emergency surgery following the incident. His scapula, the strongest bone in the human body, was fractured as well. And, to ease breathing problems attributable to his beating, the plaintiff had additional surgery in December. A grisly ending indeed, if the complaint is to be believed, to an outing that began in an innocent quest to obtain sleep-inducing THC pills from a nearby medical-marijuana dispensary.

"Brian Mulligan was brutally beaten by a predator wearing a badge and a uniform," Skip Miller, the Miller Barondess LLP partner who has taken over the case, said on being reached soon after the suit's filing. "Then he was attacked and vilified in the press."

Although Mulligan gave an interview to The Hollywood Reporter late last year, he declined at the time to elaborate on one of the weirdest aspects of an already bewildering case. Three days before his fateful confrontation with officers Nichols and Miller, Mulligan engaged a Glendale police officer near his precinct house in a recorded conversation about the possibility of being followed by helicopters. Once the officer claimed the Glendale police had no helicopters in the air at the time, Mulligan admitted to being "a little paranoid." Then, asked if he might be on medication, he copped to having used bath salts about 20 times, most recently two weeks ago.

The suit addresses this conversation, albeit somewhat cryptically, with the assertion: "Mulligan went to the Glendale police station on May 13, 2012, because an acquaintance had given him a product to take. Mulligan and the acquaintance had been having a conversation about jet lag, and the acquaintance told Mulligan that the product would help alleviate the symptoms of jet lag. The acquaintance told Mulligan that the product was legal." Attorney Miller was equally dismissive of Mulligan's Glendale trip, saying, "If you're doing something wrong, you don't go to the police."

Five months later, after a tape of Mulligan's conversation with the Glendale officer had been given to the LAPD as possible evidence in a use-of-force investigation, a link to a recording of the conversation served as the centerpiece of a Los Angeles Police Protective League news release. While the release's headline, "Self-Admitted Bath Salts User Attempts to Shake Down the LAPD," was in keeping with the LAPPL's avowed mission "to vigilantly protect, promote, and improve the working conditions, legal rights, compensation and benefits of Los Angeles police officers." it also cost Mulligan his job.

Deutsche Bank, which brought Mulligan aboard with much fanfare in October 2009, initially seemed committed to restoring its highly productive media and telecom dealmaker to full capacity. His prior operating experience, including posts as chairman of Fox Television, co-chairman of Universal Pictures and senior VP of corporate development and strategic planning at MCA Inc., had already helped transform the bank from an also-ran to league-table leader in Mulligan's category.

The bank and banker first gained appreciation for each other a decade ago when, together, they put Universal in play. "They were my lead bank the last time around," Mulligan once told The Deal about the $20 billion unsolicited bid that he hatched and presented to Vivendi Universal SA with billionaire front-man Marvin Davis. And though General Electric Co.'s NBC unit ultimately prevailed in that contest, the experience awakened Mulligan to the idea of using his skills and contacts to making deals instead of running companies. Still, before accepting his banking position, Mulligan canvassed private equity firms to ensure his strategic background would be perceived as a "differentiator."

However, within a month of LAPPL's releasing the Glendale audiotape, Deutsche Bank reversed course and cut its ties with the star dealmaker. The dismissal can even be construed as an objective of the police bargaining organization, which in the opening paragraph of its statement accompanying the audiotape's Oct. 15 release played, unabashedly, to anti-bank sentiment:

"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 - the man best known for his day job as a high-powered banker with Deutsche Bank. Less known about Mulligan is that he, by his own admission, was a frequent user of 'bath salts,' a substance that causes euphoric sensations and violent delusions."

Officer Nichols, who figures so prominently in Mulligan's complaint, is also being investigated for allegedly forcing women to have sex with him in exchange for leniency. According to the L.A. Times, which on Jan. 3 published a story based on a search warrant reviewed by the newspaper, Nichols and an officer unrelated to the Mulligan investigation threatened to jail at least four women "who balked at their predatory advances."

The officers' reported modus operandi, believed to have been in place for at least three years, was to drive "women in unmarked cars, sometimes while handcuffed, to isolated areas where one of the men demanded sexual favors while the other stood guard." The article indicates that Nichols, a 12-year veteran of the force, continued the alleged practices with his on-duty sidekick through July 2012.

Mulligan's suit makes much of these allegations against Nichols, too, claiming the same M.O. was employed on the plaintiff: "find a vulnerable victim, detain the victim, transport the victim to a secluded location, and threaten violence and arrest if the victim doesn't comply with his demand." Only this time, the complaint contends, the officer wasn't abusing his target for sex but for the $3,000 in his possession: "It was a setup. Nichols told Mulligan he'd be 'dead' if he left the room. But unlike Nichols' previous victims, Mulligan didn't comply. Mulligan left the motel, and when he did, Nichols found him and beat him within an inch of his life."