A Los Angeles County jury awarded a former LAPD commander nearly $6 million on Wednesday, finding in her favor in a lawsuit against the department that claimed she was wrongfully fired over an alcohol-fueled incident in 2018.
The commander, Nicole Mehringer, argued she was held to a different standard than her male LAPD colleagues, who she claimed were allowed to keep their jobs under similar circumstances, sometimes with department officials going to extreme lengths to cover up their wrongdoing.
The jury ultimately agreed with her.
“I feel grateful and vindicated,” Mehringer told The Times after the verdict. “This verdict means everything to me and in my mind it restores my reputation.”
One of her attorneys, Greg Smith, said testimony by former Chief Michel Moore was key. Smith said he showed jurors that Moore lied when the ex-chief, who retired in 2024, testified that he hadn’t sought to overrule a disciplinary panel’s decision in Mehringer’s case.
“The jurors believed that our client was clearly treated differently,” Smith said.
Smith said the case partly hinged on how his client was treated by police officials when she sought to expose others for misconduct.
During trial, Smith played jurors a videotaped message from a former LAPD deputy chief, John Sherman, in which Sherman spoke about Mehringer’s sterling record and made an argument for why she should keep her job. But Sherman later withdrew his support, openly declaring that he was doing so because Mehringer had chosen to expose the department’s dirty laundry, Smith said.
Mehringer’s case dates back to April 27, 2018, when she and her subordinate, Sgt. James Kelly, were arrested by Glendale police officers. The two were found in an unmarked police Dodge Charger that had come to rest against a parked vehicle in the middle of the road.
Kelly, who was behind the wheel, appeared to be under the influence, while Mehringer also showed signs of intoxication and argued with the officers, who needed about 20 minutes to get the pair out of the vehicle, Glendale police told The Times in 2018. Mehringer was charged with a single misdemeanor count of public intoxication, while Kelly was booked on charges of driving under the influence.
Mehringer’s charge was later dismissed, after she completed a 30-day outpatient recovery program. Kelly later pleaded no contest.
At the time of the incident, Mehringer was considered a rising star in the LAPD. She ran the department’s employee relations group, which handles contract negotiations, grievances and other union-related issues.
Mehringer said in her motion she was offered a demotion of two ranks to lieutenant, which she turned down. She ended up losing her job after a disciplinary panel ruled against her. Kelly was downgraded to police officer from sergeant and assigned to an administrative post. He is no longer listed on a recent department roster.
Mehringer sued the city to get her job back, alleging that her conduct — while against department policy — was no different from male command staff who routinely flouted rules and got away with it. Unlike her, she said, some of these men were allowed to retire quietly. Others kept their jobs or were even promoted.
During a sometimes tearful testimony, Mehringer testified that she knew having an inappropriate relationship with an underling and being drunk in public was wrong. She said the situation had “humiliated” her and left her career in tatters, but maintained that the way her case was handled was unfair.
The verdict marked another huge legal loss for the city when it comes to a lawsuit by a female police command staff member.
In 2022, a jury awarded $4 million in damages to Lillian Carranza, a since-retired commander who sued over allegations that department leadership had failed to appropriately respond when officers began circulating a photo of a nude woman that some falsely claimed was her.
Another former LAPD higher-up, ex-Capt. Stacey Vince, received a $10.1-million verdict in 2023 after accusing the department of retaliating and discriminating against her for complaining about a supervisor’s conduct.
