3rd Ex-Holden Worker Charges Harassment : Claim: Woman says the councilman promised advancement in return for sex. The mayoral candidate denies the accusations.

Just hours before he filed papers to run for mayor of Los Angeles, City Councilman Nate Holden was accused Wednesday of sexual harassment by another former female employee, the third such complaint filed in four months.

Marlee Beyda, 28, said in a claim filed in the city clerk’s office that Holden performed lewd acts, groped her and promised her job advancement in exchange for sexual favors. The claim demands more than $3.1 million in damages from the city of Los Angeles for psychological injuries, medical costs and economic losses.

The allegations describe behavior far more sexually aggressive than raised in previous claims and are potentially more politically damaging as the April 20 mayoral primary nears.

The 10th District councilman accused Beyda of concocting the allegations and said he would not be swayed from his mayoral bid. “She is lying,” he said. “Those are all lies.”

Holden accused Beyda and her attorney of trying to blackmail him by demanding a settlement of $250,000 in exchange for not pursuing the complaint. But Los Angeles police officials said they investigated the blackmail accusation and found it “not to be true,” a department spokesman said.

Beyda’s attorney, Jack O’Donnell, said he has conducted prolonged settlement negotiations with Holden’s attorney but denied that he threatened Holden.

The claim contends that Holden harassed the former receptionist on at least 50 occasions during her nearly 1 1/2 years of employment in his field office, which ended in September, 1992. The alleged events took place at the field office, City Hall and Holden’s Marina del Rey condominium, the claim says.

It said the most serious harassment occurred at Holden’s home. Beyda accused Holden of “putting his hand over mine on his penis, while he masturbated.” She also accused Holden of putting his hand down her pants to feel her buttocks and of “removing my shoes, belt, pants and underwear.”

O’Donnell declined to elaborate on the claim.

The 64-year-old councilman, a bachelor, emphatically denied that he had ever engaged in any sort of sexual activity with Beyda, saying that he had actually rejected advances from her. “I had to run around my desk to get away from her,” Holden said. “She was a nice person. But I think she had a crush on me.”

He acknowledged that Beyda had visited his apartment on at least two occasions but said the meetings were “all very innocent.”

The first visit came soon after she joined the office, Holden said, when Beyda asked to visit him to help him recover from an illness. He said that she cooked soup for him and massaged his shoulders, at her suggestion. The two also discussed her job and “what kind of work she could do in my district office,” Holden said.

Holden said that in September, after she had left his employ, he called Beyda to get the name of a friend who she had suggested could give him a massage to reduce stress. The friend was unavailable, but Beyda came to his condominium and rubbed his neck and shoulders, Holden said.

The massage and hot compresses helped relieve his headache and he paid Beyda $45 for the treatment, he said. “She seemed really, genuinely concerned about my health,” Holden said.

The claim also accused Holden of making advances in his City Hall office, touching Beyda’s buttocks, legs and stomach, and forcing kisses on her. Beyda also accused Holden of making repeated lewd comments, including once when he declined to take her to a “constituent appearance.”

“I’d take you, but why should I? You won’t put out,” the claim accuses Holden of saying. Beyda added that Holden offered job perks and career advancement, as well as financial assistance and gifts, in return for sex.

Some of Holden’s male staff members emulated their boss in harassing women on the staff, Beyda said.

Holden said that on the contrary, Beyda was well-treated--receiving time off for the Jewish holidays, even though she had not accrued enough vacation time. Beyda also received free housing when a Holden campaign official told her about an elderly woman who was looking for a roommate, Holden said.

But Beyda’s lawyer says that even the apartment offer was a form of sexual coercion. In a letter to Holden’s lawyer, O’Donnell called the free room part of Holden’s plan to “extort unwanted sexual activity from Beyda.”

The claim to the city concludes with another accusation--that Holden and his staff ridiculed Beyda and limited her work assignments because she is Jewish. “I was generally not permitted to interact with constituents other than Jews,” Beyda said.

When told of that accusation, Holden reacted with apparent shock--holding his head in his hand, then slumping in his chair. “Oh my God’!” Holden said. “That is awful. I don’t discriminate against anybody.”

Holden also said Beyda had not appeared to be disturbed or upset with him since she left his office in September. He said she voluntarily resigned to take a job at a candy store; her claim said she was forced to quit. Since then, Holden said, she has returned for friendly visits and called him on the phone. He provided recordings of phone messages in an attempt to prove his claim.

Sexual harassment allegations have been the talk of City Hall--because of accusations against Holden by two former aides and because Mayor Tom Bradley recommended the firing of City Clerk Elias Martinez after charges that he harassed several women in his office. A City Council hearing on the charges, which Martinez denies, will be held next week.

Meanwhile, nearly two in five female city employees who responded to a survey last fall said they had been sexually harassed on the job, and the City Council has hired an ombudsman to streamline handling of such complaints.

The accusations against Holden surfaced in October when Carla Cavalier and then Connie Collins said they had been leered at, touched inappropriately and subjected to suggestive comments.

In October, Cavalier, 32, who resigned from Holden’s office in April after four years as a receptionist and field deputy, filed a $500,000 complaint against Holden with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

Collins, 30, sent a letter to the state agency, although she has not filed a formal complaint. Accusing Holden of displaying pinup calendars and Playboy magazines in the office, Collins said she “was humiliated, embarrassed and offended by (Holden’s) rampant and hostile verbal and physical sexual attacks on me.”

Holden has consistently labeled the accusations lies, contending that they are the concoctions of Melanie Lomax, Cavalier’s attorney and a former city commissioner allied with Bradley, Holden’s nemesis.

Holden said Beyda’s accusations appear to be a part of a campaign to discredit him. “I don’t know why people are coming together to try to destroy me,” he said.