Torrance Sues Accounting Firm in Investment Scandal : Litigation: The city claims Deloitte & Touche failed to notify it of problems with investment adviser Steven D. Wymer, who allegedly defrauded the city of more than : $6 million.

The Torrance City Council, moving to recover more than $6 million lost in an investment scandal, has approved hiring a law firm to sue its onetime auditors, Deloitte & Touche, for allegedly failing to disclose problems the accounting firm had with its former client, indicted investment adviser Steven D. Wymer.

Wymer is accused of defrauding Torrance and other cities of as much as $113 million. He is scheduled to go on trial Sept. 15 in federal court, where he faces 30 counts of securities fraud, money laundering and other charges. An attorney for Wymer said this week that his client and prosecutors are close to a plea bargain agreement.

On Tuesday, council members approved allocating as much as $200,000 for an outside law firm to file suit against Deloitte & Touche, alleging professional negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and other associated claims.

City Atty. Kenneth Nelson said the city will file the suit, which will seek $6.1 million, in about two weeks.

Nelson, in a written report to the council, said Deloitte & Touche, an auditor for one or more of Wymer’s companies, “became suspicious of Wymer’s activities and withdrew from auditing his investment firms” but failed to disclose those problems to the city.

Because of the pending litigation, Nelson said he could not elaborate on the nature of the problems the accountants had with Wymer.

Lydia Barrett, a spokeswoman for Deloitte & Touche, said Wymer is no longer a client of the firm.

“As a policy, we would not comment or discuss the services we provide our clients or former clients nor the activities in which they are engaged,” Barrett said.

It was unclear Wednesday whether Wymer was a client of Connecticut-based Deloitte & Touche at the same time the accounting firm was serving Torrance.

Mayor Katy Geissert asserted that the firm had a duty to alert Torrance about Wymer.

“We feel we have a legitimate claim against Deloitte & Touche because we feel they had an obligation to us to bring to our attention irregularities they had discovered,” Geissert said.

Deloitte & Touche’s three-year agreement to serve as the city’s accountants expired July 1, and Torrance has since contracted with another firm.

Torrance was notified last December that more than $6 million in city funds entrusted to Wymer was missing. Lawyers for Torrance filed suit in U.S. District Court in March against Wymer and his financial empire, alleging he defrauded the city.