D.A. Declines to File Charges Against Liegler : Expenses: Former head of city’s convention center is reportedly ruled not criminally culpable for throwing parties for family and friends.

The San Diego County district attorney’s office has declined to file criminal charges against the former head of the San Diego Convention Center, who authorized $150,000 worth of questionable expenses before being asked to resign, the center’s spokeswoman said Tuesday.

“The bottom line is that there will be no criminal action taken” against former convention center director Tom Liegler, spokeswoman Donna Alm said. “This brings a close to the Liegler issue. It’s what we’ve all been waiting for.”

A three-page letter from Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller to San Diego City Atty. John Witt explains that Liegler was not criminally culpable for the expenditures, which included parties for family and friends.

Liegler quit his $117,000-a-year job in April, 1991, after six years in the post.

A city audit, requested by Mayor Maureen O’Connor and the City Council, found in March that Liegler had approved $150,000 for a variety of questionable consulting contracts, including some to industry acquaintances from Anaheim Stadium and the Anaheim Convention Center, where Liegler was general manager before coming to San Diego.

A separate city audit questioning $12,000 Liegler spent on private parties was forwarded to the district attorney’s office. Those included four parties he arranged in 1990 and 1991 whose guest list included members of his family, his golfing club, colleagues from the Anaheim Convention Center and a social club whose members all have the first name Tom.

Though the center’s board of directors determined that the parties were not legitimate business expenses, the district attorney’s office said that Liegler could not be held criminally liable for billing the convention center. Liegler has since paid for two of the parties and has been asked to reimburse the center for two others.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Kuykendall, who investigated the Liegler case, would not comment Tuesday on his findings but confirmed that he sent a letter to the city attorney last week. Kuykendall said his office would not make the letter public because the city, which requested a legal ruling, should release it.

The city attorney’s office also refused to make the letter available. Asst. City Atty. Curtis Fitzpatrick acknowledged that his office had the letter but would not make it public for about a week.

“Maybe it is” a public record, he said, “but we are still looking at it.”

John Kaheny, another assistant city attorney, asked The Times to submit a formal public records request. After the newspaper complied, Kaheny still refused to turn it over, saying it contained “conditional language” about the convention center’s relationship with Liegler. He would not elaborate.

Asst. City Manager Maureen Stapleton did not return a call for comment.

But Alm, the convention center’s spokeswoman, said the center’s new executive director and its board of directors were aware of the district attorney’s conclusions, though they had not yet received a copy.

“Most of the items in the audit report have been addressed by the corporation’s board of directors, and there are policies and procedures in place that will make sure this will not happen again,” Alm said. “But the main thing is no criminal charges were filed. There was nothing illegal going on here. Now we’re just getting on with life around here.”

Liegler was out of town Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. His criminal defense attorney, Peter Hughes, said he was aware of the district attorney’s report but had not yet received a copy nor would he discuss what he knew of its contents.

Hughes had predicted in March that prosecutors would not lodge criminal charges against Liegler because his client had been entrusted with making the convention center a “world-class operation similar to a luxury resort, (and) that’s what he did.”

Consultant contracts to Liegler’s friends were justified, Hughes said, because they already had demonstrated experience and skill.

But auditors, in their March report, repeatedly cited a lack of documentation involving Liegler-approved contracts.

A former crowd control supervisor at Anaheim Stadium, for example, was paid $9,766 for consulting between November, 1989, and April, 1990. A two-page report describing the former supervisor’s visit on Feb. 28, 1990, represented the only validation of work.

A former Anaheim Stadium maintenance manager, for example, was paid $7,500 for four months of “housekeeping consulting” but the convention center could only produce two reports, totaling seven pages, that included critiques “on the appearance of carpeting, stainless steel railing, paint, etc.” at the convention center.

The former food and beverage director at the Anaheim Convention Center was paid $6,402 over four months to provide expertise to the San Diego center’s operations. Five pages of typed notes covering a four-day visit in January, 1990, was the only documentation.

The current grounds supervisor at the Anaheim Convention Center was paid $3,037 for landscaping consulting over nine months. The only documentation was several memos detailing the need for fertilizers and trees.

Auditors noted that consultant contracts totaling $92,308 were all approved in increments of less than $5,000 to escape board approval.

The 29-page audit included criticisms that Liegler hired consultants to interview employees without checking to see if the consultants were necessary, paid out money beyond the terms of the contracts, spent too much for out-of-town travel and in-house meals and did not follow proper accounting procedures for the center’s reserve fund.

New policies and procedures have been put in place that keep tight checks on the current executive director and require broader approval by the board of directors, Alm said.