Spaulding Attorney Asks State Bar to Look at Whether Witt Broke Rules : Scandal: Meanwhile, the former planning director says he believes he discussed sexual-harassment claim with special counsel months ago.

An attorney for former San Diego Planning Director Robert Spaulding asked the State Bar of California on Monday to investigate whether City Atty. John Witt’s office violated rules of professional conduct by failing to reveal a conflict of interest in the City Hall sex-and-hush-money scandal.

Spaulding also revealed for the first time Monday that he believes he discussed his predicament in December with attorney Josiah Neeper, whom the City Council hired in May to investigate the circumstances surrounding a nearly $100,000 payment to a city planner who claimed she was sexually harassed by Spaulding.

In an interview, Spaulding said he believes he spoke to Neeper by telephone shortly after Gaslamp Quarter planner Susan Bray lodged her Dec. 21 claim of sexual harassment, laying out the details of Bray’s accusation against him.

“My gut is telling me that Neeper called me, and I communicated that I was either the planning director or a high-ranking city official,” Spaulding said of the conversation. “It was Neeper’s office, and I believe it was Neeper in that conversation,” he added.

Neeper could not be reached for comment after the late-afternoon interview with Spaulding. But, earlier in the day, Neeper recalled an earlier conversation--one that Spaulding said was initiated by prominent land-use attorney James Milch, the first attorney to whom he turned for advice on legal representation.

“I have a vague memory of having such a call from someone like Jim Milch, though I can’t remember specifically whether it was him,” Neeper said. “It concerned a matter of a supervisor being the subject of some kind of discrimination claim or something like that, with no disclosure of who the person was.”

The lawyer who called Neeper inquired whether he was interested in handling the case, a request that Neeper declined because of his role as a labor-relations consultant to the city.

“I may have referred him to one or two other attorneys who handle such cases, but I’m not certain of that,” Neeper said. “I’d have to research my calendar and other things to refresh my memory.”

Milch confirmed Monday that he discussed Spaulding’s case with Neeper, without revealing Spaulding’s name or most of the details of the accusation. The details of Milch’s conversation with Neeper are contained as a footnote in attorney Michael Aguirre’s complaint about Witt to the state bar.

“I’m sure I did not mention the name of the client or his position with the city,” Milch said in an interview. “I kept it rather neutral as to what I said. I didn’t go into great detail.”

Spaulding said he was in Milch’s office when Milch first attempted to reach Neeper but was unsuccessful.

Asked why Spaulding turned to one of the city’s most prominent land-use attorneys, who frequently represents developers with projects reviewed by the Planning Department, Aguirre said that Spaulding was a neophyte when it came to legal help.

“Most people who are not lawyers don’t think through all the implications of what they do when they’re in trouble,” Aguirre said. “He reached out to someone he knew.”

Later, Spaulding sought the advice of land-use attorney James Dawe, who advised him to determine whether the city attorney’s office was willing to represent him. Spaulding hired Aguirre last week.

As a result of Neeper’s investigation, the City Council voted June 3 to ask state and local authorities to consider disciplining the handful of city officials involved in the secret settlement of the Bray-Spaulding case. Like Aguirre, the council chose the State Bar as the organization that should determine whether Witt violated his obligations.

Former City Manager John Lockwood has admitted that he put together a $98,531 payment to Bray to settle her claim of harassment against Spaulding, then purposely failed to notify the City Council to prevent the information from becoming public.

Lockwood has defended the “confidential settlement” as good business, because of his belief that the city faced a potentially far more expensive loss if Bray filed suit.

When details of the settlement leaked to the news media last month, an outraged council forced Spaulding to resign and launched the investigation headed by special counsel Neeper.

Spaulding, who maintains that his two-year affair with Bray was consensual, is seeking reinstatement to his job--a request that most council members oppose.

In his complaint against Witt, Aguirre claimed that Witt agreed in a private meeting to represent Spaulding in Bray’s harassment suit and indemnify him. That claim is buttressed by the fact that Spaulding ceased his search for a private attorney after his Jan. 15 meeting with Witt, both Aguirre and Spaulding say.

By failing to notify the council that he was representing both Spaulding and the city--Spaulding’s employer--Witt may have failed to disclose a conflict of interest, Aguirre claims.

“Witt either failed to live up to his obligation to the council or to” Spaulding, Aguirre said. “If he was representing Bob, he had a conflict. And, if he didn’t intend to represent him, he was obliged (under legal ethical guidelines) to notify him of that in writing, which he never did. So he erred one way or the other.”

Witt, however, has consistently claimed that he never promised to represent Spaulding.

Spaulding said he was astonished that, in the course of his investigation, Neeper never interviewed him. He said he believed that Witt’s office was representing him throughout the settlement negotiations with Bray and up until the May 13 closed City Council meeting at which his resignation was accepted.