LOST HILLS POLICE STATION
The famous anti-semitic slurs of Mel Gibson sheds light on what goes on at this corner of law enforcement. Lost Hills takes care of Malibu and Topanga, and gives care to its celebrity residents. In my opinion, their behavior far outshines Gibson’s in terms of legal affront and infamy. What happened to me was far worse, because it interfered with my case, and caused me to lose tens of thousands of dollars.
On September 10, 2001, I was scheduled to be evicted from my home by order of Judge Gold in Family Court.
As everyone knows, next day were the awful events of 9/11, and I was concerned about the welfare of three of my children who were living in Manhattan at the time. Lynn Redgrave I was not concerned about, she was filming in London.
On September 13, I was escorted off my Topanga home premises under the supervision of deputy Jeffries of Lost Hills Police Station.
Two days later, on Saturday September 15, I went to the gate of my premises to retrieve my car and some of my more urgent property, the kind you need when you are given only one hour to leave. Judge Gold had informed me that everything in the house belonged legally to me (also by his order), including 2 vehicles, so I had every right to enter. To protect my rights when I saw the array of people waiting in my driveway, I called Lost Hills to send a deputy,
I went to open my gate and was knocked to the ground by a young man whom I did not know. There were 4 men and 3 women present. It turned out that one of the women was, unbelievably, Lynn Redgrave, who had flown in from London to oversee my eviction, with her lawyer Emily Edelman giving orders on the other end of her cell phone.
2 patrol cars belatedly arrived, and I spoke to one of the deputies, and told him what had happened. He then spoke, not in front of me, to my celebrity now ex-wife Lynn Redgrave.
He then came back to me and said I could get one car only, and would have to leave.
Later that afternoon, I went to the desk at the Lost Hills police station, and informed them that I wished to file assault charges against this young man, whom I did not know. The officer (a woman) went in the back, then returned to say they would not allow me to do this, with no explanation offered. I then asked for a copy of the police report, which was denied. I protested, and was told to leave immediately, or I would be arrested.
The point of all this was that the police report would have revealed the name of the young man who assaulted me. I would have then known immediately that his name was Brandon Maggart jr., and that his brother, the other young man, was Garett Maggart, a television star, and his father, also present, was Brandon Maggart, Fiona Apple’s father, whom I knew had been Lynn’s lover. He was unrecognizable to me because at all times he had a video camera pointing at me to cover his face. (The others were agents of Coldwell Banker, including my tennis coach Ellen Goodman).
Several weeks went by before I quite by accident discovered in my mailbox the name of the assaulting young man in charge of my house and my history.
I was to find later just how many of my possessions had disappeared, including all my camera equipment, and spent many more tens of thousands of dollars bringing lawsuits against Lynn, the Maggart family, Coldwell Banker, Ellen Goodman, Melissa Oliver, John Saver, Nicolette Hannah, Ernesto Hernandez, and film producer/director Michael Katleman (who bought my house through the court). They were dismissed by a judge in civil court who ruled that he wouldn’t let me go forward on a fishing trip. The D.A. wasn’t interested. So thanks, Lost Hills.
These events are shown more fully in my personally taken pictures at MY EVICTION PICTURES to the left.
Had I known at the time of the “secret” police report, I would have gone to court without delay, and withdrawn permission for Lynn to be in charge of the house. At that time I still assumed she was not hostile towards me.
I would like to remind everyone that the filing of a false police report, or a report based on false evidence, is a felony. Was it filed by the police officer with knowledge that it was false? If nothing was filed because it never got written up, which is probably what they will claim, then that would be a departure from established procedures, when police answer an emergency call.
Perhaps, now that the Mel Gibson arrest has spotlighted practices at the station, supervised by police Captain Tom Martin, Sheriff Lee Baca might like to use my incident as part of his inquiries. And, dare one ask, Los Angeles County supervisors Yvonne Braithwaite Burke and Zev Yaroslavsky, I know they are waiting for results. Again, the date was Saturday, September 15, 2001.
The practices at Lost Hills police station need to be investigated at the highest levels without more ado, and their procedures made transparent for all to see. As it is, they, the law enforcers, are trampling on the civil rights of the general public and ordinary citizens like me.
