Chief, Captain Counter Sex Harassment Charges

Suspended Newport Beach Police Chief Arb Campbell and Capt. Anthony Villa lodged their first legal defense Thursday, denying sexual harassment charges and accusing the five employees who sued them of masterminding the allegations to cover up professional incompetence.

In their first detailed response to the women’s lawsuit, Campbell and Villa allege in court papers that Peri Ropke, a dispatcher who accused both of them of raping her at a drunken party 11 years ago, had sex with two other men simultaneously while she was employed by another police department.

Bruce Praet, the city-paid attorney who is representing Campbell and Villa against the rape and sexual harassment charges, said Ropke is confusing Newport Beach with another sexual encounter.

“I’m not saying she can’t tell them apart,” Praet said in an interview. “I’m saying she’s either intentionally or, at best, subconsciously, substituting them for the true actors.”

“Not true,” said Steven Pingel, the attorney representing the five women. “We will prove that what was alleged between her and Villa and Campbell happened. That’s what trials are all about.”

Legal papers filed in Orange County Superior Court also deny Ropke’s allegation that she had an affair with Villa and contend that she never had sex with Campbell or Villa, but did have a romance with someone else in the department.

When the boyfriend married someone else, “she engaged in unusual and delusional behavior” that included sending flowers to herself and wearing an engagement ring that she had purchased, the legal papers contend.

Campbell and Villa also alleged that Ropke has “a propensity for fabrication” and once boasted of being able to seduce a married co-worker. She contended in the lawsuit that she was offered a city grant to attend college in return for her silence about the rape. But Campbell and Villa maintain that any employee was eligible for such a grant.

Praet said Ropke’s sexual past and personal life are relevant in the lawsuit “only to the extent she has raised it . . . to the extent her allegations are fantasy, we need to show that.”

In their legal papers, Campbell and Villa also attack the career records of the other women in the lawsuit, saying they were troublesome employees or performed poorly. The women allege that they were disciplined or fired in retaliation for spurning sexual advances and complaining about Villa.

Campbell and Villa contend that the lawsuit is unjustified, fails to provide sufficient facts to support a claim and that the women have not exhausted other remedies for relief. It also contends that the women never filed official sexual harassment complaints, despite a city policy requiring employees to report such conduct.