Mel Gibson Arresting Officer Sues Sheriff's Department for Religious Discrimination

Deputy James Mee, cleared of leaking Gibson rant details to press but fired anyway, files lawsuit claiming retaliation

In James Mee's eyes, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department is just as fun as a barrel of Mel Gibsons.

The sheriff's deputy, who was the arresting officer when Gibson was busted for DUI in 2006, has sued his employer for retaliation, claiming he was punished for writing up a report that painted an unfavorable opinion of Gibson.

Mee was ultimately cleared after being accused of leaking the report.

Read the lawsuit

According to Mee's lawsuit, filed Tuesday in L.A. Superior Court, Gibson was pals with L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca at the time of his arrest and had been a spokesman for the department's Star Program.

So after Mee painted a highly inflammatory portrait of Gibson in his arrest report, in which he laid out the various things the actor said during the course of his arrest, Mee was "unjustly denied" a promotion and ended up being the target of "religious discrimination and retaliation for plaintiff's religion and his report of anti-Semitic remarks by [Gibson]," the lawsuit states.

Mee, who is Jewish, was on the receiving end of Gibson's reported "Jews are the cause of all the wars in the world" comment during his bust.

HIs lawsuit reiterates that he was ordered to leave Gibson's anti-Semitic rant out of his report (four pages containing the damning info were later published by TMZ), and then further alleges that Sheriff's Sgt. Tracy Palmer erased a videotape that showed Gibson acting franctically screaming and pacing while in custody.

Mee claims that, because he is Jewish, he was the first officer singled out as a possible source of the TMZ leak, even though other employees had equal access to those four pages. He ended up with a negative job performance report on his permanent record, he says, and was passed over for various promotions because the leak investigation took four years.

Mee alleges violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act by Discrimination on Account of Religion; retaliation in violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act; and violation of the CFEHA by harassment and creation of a hostile work environment. He is seeking unspecified damages for loss of income and benefits, medical expenses, emotional distress and mental suffering.

Responding to the allegations, Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore says that the lawsuit doesn't tell "the whole story."

"We look forward to telling it," he said. "It has nothing to do with religious discrimination. We categorically deny those allegations."

He also said that none of the evidence pertaining to Gibson's arrest has been destroyed.

(Originally published Sept. 7, 2010, at 3:48 p.m. PT)