A man accused of assaulting a Hermosa Beach police officer with his BMW convertible is fighting back with a lawsuit claiming he was the victim of a police conspiracy.

Hermosa Beach Motor Officer Anthony Parente, 44, rammed into the back of Brian Hitchcock’s silver BMW on June 8, 2010, near Ford Avenue and Artesia Boulevard in Redondo Beach.

Parente flew over his handlebars and into Hitchcock’s back seat. He landed face up with his legs dangling over the car door. Pictures of the strange scene went viral on the Internet.

Hitchcock, a 60-year-old technical writer, was accused of assault by the Hermosa Beach Police Department, but he has maintained that Parente purposefully slammed into his car. The assault case against Hitchcock was dropped before trial started in Torrance court earlier this year.

Hitchcock’s attorney, Thomas Beck, claims in a lawsuit filed in July against Hermosa Beach that Police Department officials knew Parente was lying and they covered up for him.

Hermosa Beach police officials did not return a call for comment Wednesday. They have not yet been served with this lawsuit, Beck said. Parente has been out of work on medical disability leave since the accident, and said he suffered pinched nerves, massive bruising, headaches, among other ailments.

Hitchcock’s suit claims that the department’s statement that it conducted a thorough investigation of the crash and that Parente did nothing wrong was part of a “conspiracy to cover up the criminal misconduct by Parente.

“Parente suddenly and intentionally rear ended” Hitchcock’s car, the suit states. “Parente falsely represented that Mr. Hitchcock passed him on his right in the ‘parking lane’ and … ‘abruptly made an unsafe lane change in front of (Parente’s) motorcycle.’ ”

Hitchcock is seeking financial compensation for attorney’s fees he incurred while defending himself against assault charges. He is also asking for compensation for mental and emotional pain, fear, anxiety and torment.

The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office accused Hitchcock in 2010 of stopping abruptly, causing the officer to hit him. But, in January of this year, the case was dropped on the day trial was set to begin in Torrance court.

Beck said the case was dropped because of Parente’s prior misconduct, including fraudulent workers’ compensation claims and misrepresenting his income in a child-support case. At the time, prosecutors said they dropped the case because newly discovered evidence called Parente’s version of the story into question.

“As soon as I reported to the prosecutors what I had found out about Parente, they dropped the case,” Beck said. “Parente has on multiple occassions as a peace officer falsely accused others of crimes against himself for personal financial gain and defrauded his victim’s insurers, fraudulently capitalizing on his occupation as a police officer.”

sandy.mazza@dailybreeze.com

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