Former police detective sues for defamation, invasion of privacy

CITY CENTER — Attorneys for a former Burbank police detective suing the city for racial discrimination in the workplace filed a second lawsuit against the city Tuesday, alleging that officials illegally disclosed confidential personnel and termination records to the media and members of the public for the purpose of harming the officer’s reputation.

The lawsuit alleges that City Atty. Dennis Barlow and city executives on July 16 released former police Det. Christopher Lee Dunn’s personnel file and other documents to the Burbank Leader and others on the same day Dunn filed a wrongful termination and racial discrimination lawsuit against the city.

Allegations in the latest filing include invasions of privacy and defamation of character.

A recipient of the Los Angeles Police Department Medal of Valor before joining the ranks of the Burbank Police Department in 2001, Dunn suffered years of ridicule based on his Japanese ancestry and received less desirable assignments despite besting his peers in recorded drug seizures, according to the original complaint.

The Leader published a story on the complaint, citing records from Dunn’s personnel file, including a May 9, 2008, letter to Burbank Police Chief Tim Stehr from Los Angeles County District Atty. Steve Cooley that stated the detective’s actions in a 2007 criminal narcotics case was tantamount to “obstruction of justice, an act of moral turpitude.”

Dunn’s attorney, Solomon E. Gresen, maintains that while the district attorney had, in fact, issued a “Brady” letter to Dunn, it did not “declare” that Dunn had acted improperly.

The attorney’s spokesman last week called the disclosure of Dunn’s private personnel file to the Leader and others “illegal and a clear violation of California law.”

Barlow has defended the disclosure as an attempt to correct the public record, saying state law “specifically allows the city to respond to public statements, published in the paper, where he knows they’re not true.”

He is on vacation and could not immediately be reached for comment.