IRVINE : New Allegations of Police Sex Club Told

City officials promised Wednesday to investigate new allegations that police officers had sex with women in the back seats of patrol cars and formed a club to brag about their exploits.

The charges--which came in the form of notarized statements from two former Police Department employees--were released at Tuesday’s City Council meeting by representatives of a local women’s group, who also called on the city to commission an independent investigation.

The statements signed by former dispatchers Nancy Anna Maubach and Nancy Fox, intended to contradict the conclusions of a police internal affairs investigation, which concluded that no “Code Four Club” existed at the department. But the documents offered few details to substantiate the charges.

Nor do either of the statements say that the women actually witnessed any specific instances of sexual misconduct in patrol cars. Rather, Maubach said she was told about the club by other employees, and Fox said “male officers would brag to me or in my presence about their membership in the club.” Both women left the department by 1990.

Fox and Maubach were not available for comment Wednesday, said attorney Steve Pingel, who forwarded the statements to the National Organization for Women’s Bayview chapter. NOW chapter officials released the documents without warning at Tuesday’s council meeting.

The latest round of “Code Four Club” allegations comes two weeks after the police internal affairs investigation found no evidence that such a club ever existed at the department.

NOW officials contended that the statements show the police probe was an incomplete “sham.”

“The Police Department can’t investigate this club,” said NOW spokeswoman Tamara Mason.

Pingel is representing four other current and former female Police Department employees now suing the city for sexual harassment. Two of them made similar charges about a “Code Four Club” last month.

“Code Four” is a police term that means an officer is all right.

Mayor Mike Ward and other city officials said the city will investigate the charges and any others that come to light.

But as with the original charges, some officials questioned the timing of the accusations, which were made several years after both Fox and Maubach left the department.

City Atty. Joel Kuperberg called the statements “hearsay” that probably would not be admissible in court.