Holden Threatens to Sue 2 Ex-Employees : Litigation: He calls sexual harassment allegations against him ‘mean-spirited.’ Attorney Melanie Lomax, counsel for the women, says they will not be intimidated.

Calling allegations of sexual harassment against him “mean-spirited and without any merit,” Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden threatened Thursday to file a defamation lawsuit against two female former employees who have accused him of making sexual advances.

Holden said his countersuit will be filed if he is officially served with allegations by the two women, Carla Cavalier and Connie Collins.

His attorney, Barbara Lindemann, said Holden will drop the matter if the women do not go ahead with their complaints.

At a morning news conference, Lindemann also argued that Collins did not behave like a mistreated employee. The attorney showed a series of photographs, including one of a smiling Collins with her arm around Holden on her last day in the office.

A lawyer representing both Collins and Cavalier countered that Holden’s threatened suit was merely “political damage-control” by a potential mayoral candidate. Attorney Melanie Lomax said the women would not submit to Holden’s attempt to “intimidate” them into withdrawing their complaints.

“They are not going to shrink from these complaints,” Lomax said. “They have what is right on their side.”

The sexual harassment controversy began last month when first Cavalier and then Collins said they had been leered at, touched inappropriately and been the targets of suggestive comments by the 64-year-old councilman.

Both women lodged complaints with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, a prerequisite to filing lawsuits.

Holden will be served with a copy of Cavalier’s complaint by next week, an official of the state agency said. Collins’ complaint is still being studied. An investigation into the content of the allegations could take up to a year, said Rudy Frank, a consultant with the agency.

In a statement to the state agency, Cavalier, 32, said Holden had once touched her breast, using the excuse that he was attempting to look at her lapel pin. On another occasion he grabbed her hand and tried to pull her toward him, Cavalier alleged.

In her statement, Collins, 30, said Holden “would extend his hand in an attempt to grab me and pull me closer to him. Very often he would run his hand down the back of my head and neck in a suggestive manner . . . “

Collins said the behavior fostered a “sexually charged atmosphere” in Holden’s office that encouraged sexual harassment by other male employees.

Holden has consistently labeled the accusations as lies, contending that they are the concoctions of Lomax, a former city commissioner who is an ally of Mayor Tom Bradley, Holden’s nemesis.

The councilman has declined to discuss details of the allegations, saying his attorney advised him not to comment.

On Thursday, Lindemann attempted a new line of defense by displaying the pictures, including the photo of Collins and Holden. Lindemann also said that Collins had returned to meet with Holden five times since she left his employ.

“I didn’t want to hug her,” Holden said. “She just kept asking me to hug her. But since it was her last day, I stood next to her and took a picture with her.”

Rachel Heller, Holden’s press deputy, said the photo was meant to show that Collins was not displeased with her boss at the time she left the city last year.

Lomax said the picture proves only that Collins was trying to make a “graceful exit” from Holden’s office. The attorney acknowledged that Collins returned several times to talk to Holden but said the visits were mostly related to her new job with the county.

“There has been no denial that she tried to extricate herself from the situation on good terms--that she tried to salvage her career, as anyone would try to do in that situation,” Lomax said.

Lindemann also presented three other photos of Collins. They show her in Holden’s City Hall office cutting a cake, posing in a doorway and holding her hair on top of her head. Holden’s attorney said the photos showed Collins’ “attitude” at the time of her employment.

Lomax said the photos were insignificant and that Collins “conducted herself at all times in a non-sexual and non-provocative sense.”